Read NocC 014 - Elle James - Hot Demon Nights - Harlequin 2012-05 for Free Online Page B

the company thirty years ago and made Felding his successor. Not long after, Lebowitz kicked the bucket, leaving Felding as owner and CEO of the company.”
    “Any little Lebowitzes running around angry that they didn’t get a share of Daddy Lebowitz’s pie?”
    “The man died a childless widower.”
    “No bastard children he didn’t recognize? Greedy cousins?” I tucked my hands in my back pockets as I paced the floor, trying to think of anyone who might want to harm the women in Felding’s circle.
    “None mentioned in the reports.” Blaise glanced up, a grin spreading across his face. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you’re intense?”
    I ground to a halt. “Don’t go there. The last guy who said that to me ended up with a fractured jaw.”
    Blaise’s brows rose, but I couldn’t tell if it was in response to what I’d said or to what I was thinking. “You hit him?” he asked.
    “A couple times. Almost got fired over it. My supervisor said I should have handled it without the tire iron.” I shrugged.
    Blaise stared harder. “It wasn’t the compliment that got you mad.” He didn’t ask, the words he spoke were a statement plucked from the clear memory in my head. The night Vance Lincoln attacked me in the parking lot outside the freakin’ police station. If I had not been changing the flat on my cruiser, I wouldn’t have had the tire iron on me. I’d have been at Vance Lincoln’s mercy—all of his two-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds to my one-hundred-twenty-seven. I started getting catcalls when I was thirteen, but as long as it was just talk, I could handle it. What I couldn’t handle was any man—especially a police officer—thinking that looking the way I look gave him the right to do anything he wanted to me.
    I figured if I couldn’t trust my fellow officers in Chicago, I might just as well fight the criminals and jerkwads of New York City. A new start might do me good.
    “And here you are fending off zombie attacks instead of potential rapists among your coworkers.” Blaise grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “You need to know.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “I’m glad that you can protect yourself, Katya, but you’ll never have to with me.”
    I should have pulled my hand from his, but his words wrapped around me, warming me in places that had been cold for too long. “Let go.”
    He turned my hand over and pressed a kiss to the palm.
    By then his hold was little more than a touch. I could have pulled free at any time, but I didn’t. Damn the demon. There was just something about him that coiled around my senses, sucking me into his presence like metal to a magnet until my legs bumped into his thighs and my other hand lifted to touch those long, luscious locks of thick, black hair. And they were coarse but silky and every bit as sexy to feel as they were to see.
    With a quick yank, he had me seated in his lap.
    Caught off guard, I opened my mouth to protest, but his lips closed over mine before I could get a word out. The man was fast, like he said. But unlike every other man I’d met since Chicago, nothing about his touch made me want to pull away—or find a tire iron. His hold on me was still light. I could have gotten off his lap. I just didn’t want to. And once he claimed my lips, my will to resist fell to nothing more than a gentle groan.
    By the time he allowed me enough air to breathe, I was weak and trembling. My hand pressed to his chest, the fingers working their way through a few buttons to open his shirt. I had to touch his skin. My fingers found his chest, warm and sprinkled with hair like any human, only not like any human. He seemed larger than life. The hardened ridge beneath my bottom nudged against me, promising proof of his statement that demons have better equipment. I wanted to see and feel for myself. My hands slid down his chest, stopping when another button got in the way of my progress. I ripped at