Kiss & Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t want him touching her. Delaney slid a little further off the edge of the bed until only one butt cheek clung to the lip of the mattress, her thighs burning and screaming from the strain of keeping up the pretense that she was willing to hear him out—and it hurt every muscle in her body.
    So now would be the time to thank God for Pilates.
    All that crazy talk of your core strength and such, the crap that had seemed soooo silly while she’d been playing with that dumb-ass piece of blue elastic tangled around her ankles, was actually working in her favor. If she could take action without freaking the dogs out, and without warning, she just might have a chance. The element of surprise was what she needed here.
    “So can we talk?”
    “Uh-huh. Sure we can talk. You do a lot of that without any help from me—you have an uncanny gift for gab—so go for it. My listening ears are on—wide-open.” She didn’t lift her head—didn’t try to read his face for signs as to why he sounded so calm and reasonable when he’d just told her his intent was to drag her back to Hell.
    Delaney knew that threat—it’d been around for fifteen long years. It’d also been reinforced by someone far more frightening than Clyde here.
    Though, it wasn’t delivered quite the way Clyde had delivered it. It’d been accompanied by a whole lot of maniacally scary roaring—riddled with some serious potty mouth, a couple of screaming balls of fire, and sometimes, when effect was the goal, speaking in tongues. Which could be fabulous to behold if you didn’t let it make your panties wad and saw it simply for the supernatural phe nom it was.
    Far, far more dramatic than Clyde’s rather dry, almost cheerful statement.
    He sighed rather forlornly. “Explanations are in order about that, or something, I guess.”
    Something was definitely in order . . . she was so close to being sucked in by his tone, the calm, assured presence he gave off, an aura that literally seeped from his pores, that she found she had to fight the simplicity of his easygoing manner. Too close. “Sure. Explain away.”
    Delaney felt him change positions on the bed, the dogs following close behind, moving as one teeming swarm with him, begging for more of his attention. “Can you give me just a sec so I’m sure I get it right? This was just sort of sprung on me today, and I want to be one hundred percent accurate when I relay the information I have to you.”
    Sweat trickled between her breasts, forming beads on her forehead, yet she held her ground while she waited for just the right moment.“You can have all the seconds you need.” Her face scrunched up while she fought back a grunt, her toes dug into the thin carpet of her bedroom floor, her arm ached from holding herself two inches above the bed.
    The bedspread rustled behind her. Obviously there was some deep thought going down on Clyde’s behalf.
    And really—why was that? What was all this introspection and getting his explanations right about?
    What the fuck kind of demon gave a flying Dutchman about how he was going to explain he was here to collect her for Lucifer?
    Because that’s what Clyde was— a demon .
    If she hadn’t been sure before, she was now. That she hadn’t picked up on that the second he’d entered her head—or even when he’d been able to don something from this plane like a bathrobe—made her want to bang her head against the edge of her dresser until she was unconscious.
    Had demons gone to the sensitive side since she’d last encountered them? Last she’d seen a demon, he was anything but warm and squishy, and he sure hadn’t given a shit about how he’d presented his very evil wishes.
    So huh on that.
    And while Clyde was working on his verbal dissertation of wicked intent—she was going to hit it while she could. With the merest of squeaks, Delaney inched from the bed, landing on the foot that hadn’t gone numb and ignoring the shot of pain that rippled along her