Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) Read Online Free PDF Page A

dismissed that thought and kept my eyes on Dex as the light fell over his vehicle and his leather-clad shoulders. He wore those big boots again, fitted black jeans, and a blue T-shirt with faded writing on the front. He reached into his front pants pocket and pulled out a lighter. In seconds the cigarette was lit and at his lips, the strong and undeniable scent of marijuana floating on the air.
    After the first few puffs I wondered what the hell I was doing standing in a parking lot staring at some guy like I was going to rip his throat out—which by the way I totally wanted to do. I was about to turn away when I caught another scent, sifting slowly through the thick streams of marijuana odor and every muscle in my body tensed.
    Dex looked up at that second, catching my gaze and staring at me with the cigarette between his lips, his fingers poised to take it out so he could blow more smoke from his mouth. It was a complete stare down, like men did just before a duel, except I had no weapon and I was guessing neither did Dex. The stenchintensified and I was struggling to identify it while still keeping my eye on Dex when the front door of the bar opened and out came Dex’s laughing cohorts, followed by Zoe.
    I took a step forward, to do what I wasn’t quite sure, but the sight of her now standing at the front of the vehicle with Dex and his goons right behind her, didn’t sit well with me. Dex grinned in my direction as he reached out and pulled Zoe by her waist up to him. Her hands went to his chest and she followed his gaze.
    It felt like she’d reached across the parking lot right into my chest to squeeze my heart. I opened my mouth to air that wanted release, clenching my fists at my sides when she shook her head at me. Dex continued to laugh, his hands on her ass now while behind Zoe’s back his two friends gyrated and clapped. I wanted to run across that street, to grab her and pull her away from them. She didn’t belong with Dex, didn’t belong in that big-assed truck that looked more like an army tank. She belonged with …
    Shaking my head, I broke all eye contact. Zoe did not belong with me. I belonged with myself, now and forever. It was safer for all concerned that way. The shaman back in Brazil had told me that. People that I felt like saving rarely wanted to be saved, he’d also said as he’d reflected on my mother. The parallel here was with Zoe. Like my mother, she had chosen whoshe wanted to be with, chosen the path she wanted her life to take. And no matter how much begging and pleading—or in this case, arguing and possibly fighting—I did, Zoe’s choice would still be her own.
    So I turned away. I climbed into my truck and I took myself home, trying my damnedest to ignore the raw scrape of emotions that burned my chest as I looked through my rearview mirror to see Zoe climbing up into Dex’s truck. I turned out of the parking lot, this time my wheels screeching over asphalt, and I drove away.
    Unable to breathe while anger and some unnamed sentiment clogged my senses, I rolled down my window to get some air and the stench that had searched for my attention back in the parking lot was there again, almost as if it were following me. It was slightly familiar, officious and raw and my eyes opened wider when I pinpointed exactly what it meant.
    Dex and his merry men were rogues.

CHAPTER 4
Zoe
    He hadn’t come into the bar again last night. This made a whole week since I’d spoken to Caleb. I’d seen him, three days after the night he’d blocked my car door, sitting in his truck in front of the bar. I’d walked out with Dex’s friends right behind me. Caleb looked at me and then pulled off.
    And I was one lame-ass goofball for keeping such meticulous track of these events. Pushing my cart through the dairy section of the supermarket, I tried valiantly to recall what I’d wanted this week. I’d been cooking since I was eight and had to pull the chair over to the stove to put on six eggs. Two