Fever Claim (The Sigma Menace) Read Online Free PDF

of West Creek, now having passed Pale Moonlight, which sat on the outer edge of town anyway. This part of the city wasn’t as affluent as the rest. It wasn’t saying much, probably why the club patrons came from a rougher crowd. The houses were further apart, a little more rundown. More trees popped up and soon the terrain got a hillier and more wooded. Most of West Creek was the stereotypical wrong side of the tracks. It sat across the river from Freemont, a much larger metropolis with a more refined reputation.
    Cassie sat forward, intent on the surroundings, as Jace turned off the highway onto a gravel road. Every once in a while they passed a business—kayak and canoe rentals, small bed trucking company—until soon it was nothing but trees.
    Jace slowed and turned off onto a smaller gravel road that wound down around a hillside in the direction of the river. At one time, the road had been well maintained, but as it was now, Cassie wondered how in the world the small sports car Kaitlyn had rode out in survived the jaunt. Her heart thumped when they passed large mounds of different types of rock. They’d arrived at the quarry.
    Jace slowed the car as the larger building Kaitlyn mentioned came into view. He steered off the road and turned her car facing out, killing the engine.
    He faced her. “I need you to stay here. Get behind the wheel, doors locked, ready to go at the first sign of trouble. I’ll go look for your friend.”
    “I’m not waiting here,” she said flatly.
    “Cassie, I’m not going to ar—”
    “Jace,” she cut him off, “I can’t sit here not knowing what’s going on. I know. I have no guns, laughable self-defense skills, I get it. I’m no Jackie Chan. But I can’t just sit here.”
    Jace stared at her for a heartbeat, two heartbeats, three… then sighed. “All right. If I scent anything that might be a threat to you, we’re gone. Your safety is my main concern.”
    Relieved and more than a bit touched, Cassie nodded and went to open the door. Jace grabbed her arm and pulled her into him. Gently cupping her cheek he brought his mouth down to hers. Cassie instantly melted under him despite the circumstances. The gentleness he expressed through his kiss was completely unlike what his appearance and demeanor represented. Yet with her, she’d only known him to be thoughtful and protective. Meant only to be a one-night stand, here he was helping her help her best friend. No one could know what Kaitlyn meant to her. They were the odd couple. The party girl and the studious one, complete opposites, but each other’s rock.
    Cassie returned the kiss, greedily dancing with his tongue, wishing they were parked in the woods for a completely different reason. Just as quickly as he pulled her in, he pulled away, the look in his eyes told her he was thinking the same thing.
    “Let’s go,” he said gruffly. He shut the door quietly and watched her get out, again having to adjust his large bulge. Images from last night of her mouth wrapped around his impressive size flooded her mind. Involuntarily, her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip.
    “Woman, you’re killing me.”
    Startled, her eyes snapped up to his. The hunger in their depths made her feel a bit what a fuzzy little mouse must feel like when happening across a cat’s path. But this mouse wouldn’t mind being caught.
    “Kaitlyn,” she said, more to snap her focus back into place than his.
    Instantly, his expression became grim. He lifted his nose into the air as if he was sniffing it. Was he serious about scenting trouble? She thought that was an odd phrase, not a literal one.
    He began walking and held his hand out behind him, like he expected her to grab it. She jogged up, slid her hand into his large warm one, and he gently closed his around hers. Like the kiss, the intimacy of his actions were not what she expected from him.
    Gravel crunched under foot. The only other sounds to be heard were rustling leaves on the trees