Djinn and Tonic Read Online Free PDF

were sitting a lot like this: close, but not quite…there….”
    He’s raising a skeptical eyebrow, a saucy, sarcastic, unspoken comment. I don’t move in any closer, still fighting with myself about letting this happen.  
    I want him to make the move. I want him to show me how he feels.
    But I shouldn’t want that. I should leave the hospital right now, before we kiss again, before I get myself deeper in trouble with this all-too-sexy detective. Before the whirling vortex of trouble that is my life pulls him in any further. He’s the polar opposite of all that my family, my clan, and even my entire race represents. And not just that; he poses a complication in my life that I can’t justify, not when I’ve already got so many problems to figure out.  
    But now it’s too late: he’s closed the distance and has put his lips to mine, a slow, delicate movement, so tender and questing, so sensual coming from such a rugged man. He’s big and tough and hard and he’s kissing me like he’s worried I may shut him down. I should shut him down, but I can’t. I don’t. I won’t. Instead of pushing him away and running like a smart girl would do, I slip my hand behind his head, to the close-cropped down-soft hair by his neck, and pull him gently towards me to deepen the kiss.
    I am a fool.  
    Why the hell am I kissing him? The sensible part of my brain is screaming at me. This is the fourth time I’ve seen this man, and I don’t think he even knows my last name.  
    This is stupid and foolish, and it’ll only lead to heartbreak for both of us.  
    But I can’t stop myself. He tastes like Jell-O and coffee, and his tongue is pushing against mine, his hand is brushing my cheek and burying itself in my hair. Our other hands are still entwined together, fingers tangled and tightening as the kiss goes from innocent to hungry in an instant.  
    I manage to pull away before it goes too far. Our faces are still mere inches from each other, and his eyes are hunting and searching mine, looking for something, digging into me, asking a thousand silent questions.
    I don’t have the answers to his questions, and I don’t know why I’m so attracted to him.  
    Sure, he’s hot as hell in that tall, dark, and handsome, all-American football player sort of way and, yeah, there’s an element of danger to him, a rugged sense of primal, sexual power. But there’s more to it than that. It’s him, the man, the person. He has a way of shredding my will, a way of communicating how much he wants me with a mere look, or a touch of his fingers. Being wanted for who I am? God help me, I can’t resist him. He touches me, looks at me, talks to me, and I know he likes me, or at least, what little he knows of me. I know he desires Leila the woman.
    A quiet, insistent voice in my soul asks me a question that douses my hunger: will he still want me when he knows what I am? Will he want me when he knows what my family is? I don’t know the answer to those questions. Another problem: I should be asking if he knows, not when . I don’t want him to know. He can’t know.  
    He must sense the conflict in me, for he pulls back and asks, “What’s wrong?”  
    I shake my head. Where do I start? What do I say?  
    “I obviously shouldn’t have kissed you,” he guesses, dejection in his voice.
    “No!” I say. “That’s not it. I kissed you back, didn’t I? I wanted you to kiss me.”
    “Then what? There’s something wrong. I can tell there is, so don’t try and say there isn’t.” He’s perceptive and insistent, and I know he’ll hear the lie in my voice.  
    I lie anyway. “It’s just…this is crazy, you know? We don’t even know each other.”
    He hisses in frustration, rolling his eyes. “Maybe it is crazy, but…it’s also not. And that’s not it either.”  
    I know he’s right, and he knows I’m evading answering his question. As crazy as it is to be kissing a man I barely know, with Carson it just feels… right .