Demon Lover Read Online Free PDF Page A

need a shrink I’ll go to a doctor, not a lawyer.
    But now… Maybe she should have paid more attention to Colin’s half–baked ideas, because even though she wasn’t afraid of men in general, she was certainly afraid of this one. And not because he was a smuggler, either; she’d handled dangerous, even desperate, men before. But this man had stripped her of her hard–won status; had dominated her—yes, damn it, admit it!—in that particular way that a man dominates a woman. And he had done so almost without laying a hand on her.
    He was dangerous. He kept her off–balance. She must keep her wits about her if she was to have any chance at all of getting out of this mess. It was high time she got back into uniform, got her professional head on straight and got back to work.
    There was very little food in the camper. Very little, at least, that Julie felt up to eating. The refrigerator held only
cerveza
and some cornmeal tortillas that looked homemade.
    The cupboards displayed a variety of cans, but the idea of searching for an opener and refueling on cold refried beans in the hot, swaying camper made her feel nauseated. She settled for a can of beer and a dry tortilla, tearing bite–sized pieces from the latter and chewing absently as she gazed out at the seemingly endless plain of dried mud and sand.
    Off in the distance she caught the glimmer of water—a mirage, she supposed. She couldn’t imagine what water could be out there in that direction—east, if they were, as she knew they must be, heading south. She had no way of knowing where they were, or how far they’d come while she slept. Except for an occasional recreational foray into Tijuana she had never been to Baja California. But surely it couldn’t all be as empty as this?
    With both hunger and thirst assuaged, Julie turned her energies to a thorough search of the cabin. She made no effort to be covert. If the smuggler woke up and caught her at it, what could he do? Or say? He probably expected her to search—which meant, of course, that her chances of finding anything useful were slim to none. Still, she had to look.
    Except for the fact that the camper was very dirty, understandable considering that it had recently transported a dozen or so human beings an unknown distance, she discovered nothing useful. Though she did notice something that puzzled her. The lower cupboards were very shallow. There appeared to be a great deal of dead space between the backs of the cupboards and the wall of the camper. Secret compartments? What else did this vehicle transport across international borders? Drugs? Guns? Intrigued, Julie carefully cleared out one cupboard and crawled into it head–and–shoulders deep, painstakingly feeling every centimeter and nail and crack for signs of an opening. She tapped softly with her knuckles. Definitely hollow. The access must be from the outside. She gave up and sat back on her heels.
    "Finding anything?"
    Julie gave a violent jerk and said, "Oh…God."
    "What’s the matter? Did I startle you?" The smuggler was sitting up, legs dangling and upper body hunched forward to accommodate the loft’s low ceiling.
    "Yes," Julie said tartly, "you did. I thought you were asleep."
    "Obviously. Aren’t you glad I waited until you’d backed out of there? If you’d jumped like that inside the cupboard you’d have hurt yourself." He yawned, erasing an unrepentant grin. "That was one hell of a guilty start."
    "Why should I feel guilty?" Julie muttered, scowling at the dirt on her hands. "You knew I’d look." She realized belatedly that her uniform shirt still hung unbuttoned, and that her bra was lying conspicuously on the Formica tabletop. Shifting so her back was turned toward the smuggler, she hurriedly did up her buttons, snatched the bra and wadded it into a ball.
    "Yeah, I did." He jumped down lightly from the loft, reminding Julie of nothing so much as a black panther leaving his daytime nest in a tree. "Find what you were