Heart Mates Read Online Free PDF Page B

had softened his details. Now as he surged into the store, his hard features cut like the prow of an icebreaker. Carved, determined jaw. No-nonsense mouth. Silver eyes so narrow they sliced. Sophia backed up automatically.
    He stopped and stood, fists on hips. Dominating her aunt’s store, he wasn’t just regular-guy handsome. He was breath-sucking, eye-watering, gut-punching, great gods above can-I-have-him-please stunning.
    And taboo , damn it.
    One black brow rose. “What’s that rattling?”
    Demon …? She glanced down. She was futzing with her pearls. She deliberately released them and lowered her arm. “Nothing. Close the door, please. Softly—that glass is new.”
    He shut the door with a gentleness that, given his power, was stepped-up sexy.
    “You were going to call. Why’d you come?” She winced. Come. The surging force of all that was Big, Dark and Yowsa pushed her to flee, seeking the sanctuary of the reading nook. She trotted toward a couch.
    “I know you said you can handle it. But I think I can help.” Two long-legged strides brought him alongside her.
    She cut a sideways glance at him. His muscular legs worked easily, his hips rolling like well-oiled pistons. An intense desire to fuse herself to those hot hips seared her.
    She clenched both pearls and teeth. What was wrong with her? She was a staid banker. Maybe that was it. She was surrounded all day by boat anchors in suits and ties, and Noah was a fleet pirate clipper compared to them. Wild, fresh air in her face. Howling at the moon…
    Yikes. No wonder the Witches’ Council forbade witch/shifter sex. Sure, they said it was because the fruit of such pairings was a dual , a child with both innate power and able to wield it—and often insane. A werewitch king once set himself up as a demigod and tried to kill every other witch on the planet. That didn’t go over so well.
    The Council was all over themselves out to avoid that again. So they made it a crime. But this intense attraction…now she understood why, to make absolutely certain witches and weres never got naughty parts within unclothed miles of each other, they made the penalty as harsh as possible.
    Death.
    She stopped. “Wait a minute.” Mind on Council death penalties, she spun, trotted back to the door and locked it with all the subtleness of a dog sniffing butt.
    She only realized what she’d done when the low growl thrummed through the store. Slowly, she turned.
    Noah stared at her, silver eyes blazing. Her gaze was locked helplessly with his…until he moved to adjust his jeans. Then her eyes dropped to the biggest Jiffy Pop she’d ever seen. Too late she remembered what he’d said at Mason’s.
    He was thinking what they could do, locked together alone in a closed store.
    The worst part was, she was wondering too.

Chapter Four
    She’d locked the door.
    Noah had hustled Sophia out of the Blackwood garage because their kiss had knocked him off his feet. The way she reacted to him, giving so honestly of herself, took his breath away. Never before had he tasted a woman so lively, so bright—so right .
    Which was so wrong. Alphas screwed other shifters, and strong shifters at that. They rarely screwed fragile humans, and they especially didn’t screw witches’ nieces.
    It confused him, and a confused alpha was a dead alpha, so he’d hustled her out and run the other way as fast as he could.
    Leaving her unprotected. His spirit rebelled against that.
    He didn’t understand why, until he latched onto his promise to talk with her later. He’d come here, telling himself it was only to fulfill his promise. She’d asked for his help, and he needed to give her information, but he didn’t know her phone number to call so he’d had to come in person.
    Then she locked the door, and the heat rushing through him shouted all his carefully constructed reasons were lies.
    They were alone inside a locked store. Stealing a kiss in front of Mason was nearly his undoing. Stealing a