Firecracker (Last Call, Book Six) Read Online Free PDF Page A

over.”
    “ Guilty.” He soothed the
quick bite with his tongue “But you wouldn’t mind.”
    “ Maybe not.” She stroked a
finger across the back of his neck. “What about you? Is there
anything you want? Any fantasy I could try to fulfill?”
    Jarrett rolled beside her
and propped his head on his hand. “I think you already have,
sweetheart.” To be able to let go, to not hold back… “We got a little
fiery.”
    “ We did.” Her smile was slow
and shy. “And a little rough. My fire-resistant lovers are usually
afraid to go that far, even if I ask. You’re the first man I’ve
been with who’s actually fireproof.”
    “ Too bad the room didn’t
turn out to be, too. Though I think you’re on to something with the
shower thing.”
    “ Lots of steam. Everything
gets wet and slippery.” She touched his cheek. “You have wonderful
bones. Your whole face is just beautiful. Strong angles, hard
lines...” Her fingers ghosted to his eyebrow. “I would love to
paint you.”
    “ You still do that?” A
stupid question, and he wanted to call it back as soon as he spoke.
Artists were always artists, even if no one ever knew.
    But she didn’t seem to find it stupid. “I
work as an art dealer, but I still paint. Sometimes I sell my own
work—not that of my current identity, of course. Though I only have
another ten years or so in this body, so it might be time to
discover myself.”
    He slid his fingers into her hair without
thinking. “I like you like this.”
    Sadness filled her eyes before she closed
them. “A thousand weeks,” she whispered. “That’s all I ever get. A
little more than nineteen years and I have to start again.”
    Dammit. Jarrett gripped her chin until she met his gaze again. “How do
you come back?”
    “ I don’t really go. I
just...burn.” She wet her lips. “It’s the one time the fire doesn’t
touch anything else, only me. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel
good, either. It’s just intense, like it’s swallowing me whole. And
I don’t know what happens after that. I lose consciousness and wake
up later, naked and...different.”
    “ But you’re still
you.”
    “ On the inside.”
    The implication being, of course, that no one
noticed that part. “I get it.”
    She shrugged, but a tiny smile curved her
lips. “I suppose this body was a virgin, which makes what you did
to me much more illicit.”
    Not nearly as illicit as
what he could do.
“That’s your goal, huh? Dirty it up while she still has
time?”
    She scrunched up her nose at his teasing
tone. “Perhaps. Isn’t that why people pay so much for one of these
rooms? Deviance and debauchery? And whatever they keep in those
cabinets. I’m both curious and terrified to find out.”
    Truthfully, he rarely explored the
accessories provided with the rooms. “I come here because it’s
easier. Everyone understands what’s going on.”
    Her expression sobered. “Understands what you
are? Or what this means?”
    “ Both, but mostly the first
one.” Something similar must have happened to her at least once
through the ages—meeting someone who couldn’t possibly grasp what
her existence meant, even if she could explain it. “How do you tell
someone you’ve been to Hell? That it’s where you were
born?”
    She stroked his brow instead of answering,
her touch feather light. “Is it as terrible as the stories make it?
Hell, I mean.”
    “ It’s worse,” he murmured.
“I think it took me a few centuries in this realm to really
understand how bad.”
    “ Do you have to go back
there?”
    “ I haven’t, not in years.
But I might, I guess. Someday.”
    Phoebe leaned in and kissed him softly. “We
were both born of flame. It’s nice to feel less alone, even if only
for a few hours.”
    He caught a lock of her hair and twirled the
curl around his finger. “Nicer if it doesn’t have to end quite so
soon.”
    “ We have all night, don’t
we?”
    For now. “Yes, we do.”
    “ Are you