Read Masters of Seduction Volume 2: Books 5-8: Paranormal Romance Box Set for Free Online Page A

have the meal cleared away and make use of the table instead?”
    Ashayla snapped her mouth closed before she could wade any further into his snare. She sat in mute outrage as the servants hastily finished setting the table.
    When they left and closed the doors behind them, she glared at him. “I suppose you enjoy humiliating women in front of your household staff?”
    “Not at all,” he said, his tone solemn. “Not ever.”
    She scoffed. “I see. Only me, then.”
    “Not even you, Asha. I have the utmost respect for any female in my care or safekeeping. As for my staff, this is an Incubi House. Talk of sex and pleasure doesn’t shock them, I assure you. I could’ve spread you beneath me right in front of them and they wouldn’t have batted an eye.”
    The image leapt into her mind with instant, vivid clarity and she swallowed. Hard.
    “Heathens,” she muttered, even as the thought of being pinned to the table under Sorin’s strong body wreaked havoc on her thoughts and sent arrows of heat streaking through her veins. “If that kind of behavior passes for respect in your world, it’s no wonder so many Nephilim prefer to live among humans instead of being a mate to one of the Incubi. Is that what happened with Greta?”
    He drew back at that remark, frowning in question. “You don’t know anything about that.”
    “Back in the casino, Korda Marakel made it sound as if she was important to you. Was she?” Asha studied him. “Is she still?”
    His sharp, short exhalation was dismissive. Derisive, even. “Greta was a brief, pleasant diversion from my duties, and a family-approved candidate as my mate. At least she was, until she started fucking any Incubus who would have her. Including, finally, my former friend, Korda. I cut them both out of my life five years ago. I haven’t looked back since.”
    He chuckled darkly after he said it, those unnerving eyes holding her in an oddly amused stare. Asha stared right back, utterly confused.
    Lord help her, but she did not know what to make of this man at all. “You can laugh over losing a lover and a friend? Are you crazy, or just that callous?”
    “Neither.” He leaned forward, his elbows braced on the edge of the table. “I find it funny to realize I was more disappointed when your letters and emails stopped coming than I was when Greta moved on with Korda.”
    Now it was her turn to laugh. “I don’t believe that for a minute. I’m pretty sure I called you a selfish, pompous jerk in the last message I sent you.”
    “Actually, you called me a selfish, pompous jackass. One who, and I quote, obviously doesn’t have an ounce of compassion in his Hell-spawned body.”
    Asha bit her lip, recalling that heated final reply with fair accuracy herself. “I don’t hear you denying it.”
    He shrugged mildly. “No, you don’t. What about you?”
    “What about me?”
    “You’re a beautiful woman,” he pointed out. “Headstrong and reckless, obviously. Opinionated and judgmental too—”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “—but lovely,” he said. “So why hasn’t another man—another Incubus—convinced you to become his mate? Don’t bother to deny it. I checked into your family background after your first letter arrived.”
    “You what?”
    He shrugged again, utterly unapologetic. “I was…curious. I am curious, Asha. Do all of the Nephilim women in your line despise my kind?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Do you?”
    She frowned. “No. I don’t despise all of your kind.”
    He grunted. “I see. Only me, then.”
    A twinge of guilt pricked her to hear her own words tossed back at her, but she shut it down just as swiftly.
    No, no, no. She was not going to let him make her feel that her dislike toward him was misplaced. After five months and a dozen denied requests for him to show one tiny ounce of sympathy for the wishes of a dying old woman, Sorin Ebarron had earned every bit of her resentment.
    After his profane wager that had landed her in his hands for