Master of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

really made Erin’s instincts chime. The last man she’d met with a stare that feral had been a DEA agent who’d gone deep cover in a Columbian drug cartel a little too long.
    None of which jibed with the dossier she’d spent the morning studying. Champion’s childhood had been spent in private schools, with Christmas vacations in Aspen and summers in Greece. Between racking up indifferent grades at Harvard, he’d kicked around Europe and gotten his heart broken by some Parisian bimbo his family had flatly refused to let him marry.
    Yet her gut told her the owner of those hard eyes wouldn’t have let anybody dictate who he could or couldn’t wed. Not even on pain of losing a multimillion dollar inheritance.
    On the other hand, she found it just as hard to believe such a handsome, suave man would be willing to bankroll an anthrax attack on Atlanta. So was the Outfit’s intelligence that far off, or had Erin’s instincts gone that far south? Neither alternative appealed.
    Frowning, she looked back in his direction, expecting to see Champion still talking to that boor from ComTec. Instead he was barely six feet away and closing fast, his pirate’s mouth curved in a lazy half-smile. His gaze met hers with predatory heat.
    Erin almost bobbled her champagne as her instincts buzzed like cicadas. No junior VP would have dared walk away from George Gavel, not with the kind of power the CEO wielded. Particularly not when Champion International was trying to buy Gavel’s company. And certainly not just to chase a woman. Champion would have to be an idiot.
    Unless he’d made her. Erin didn’t think she’d ever seen him at one of the cult’s Sabbats, but what if she was wrong?
    Her heartbeat took on an adrenaline-rush rhythm as every instinct demanded she run. Instead she gave Champion her best seductive smile.
    One thing Erin Grayson knew was how to play the game.
    Â 
    â€œGood evening,” Reece said when he was again close enough to breathe in the Latent’s delicious scent.
    â€œHello.” He could hear her heartbeat pounding as she smiled that sensual smile at him. There was fear under the exotic musk of her perfume, an alarm that didn’t quite mesh with her hooded come-get-me gaze. It made Reece wonder if she knew what he was. What she was.
    What he could do to her.
    Then again, maybe she was playing some other game altogether. Could be harmless, could be something that would get him killed. He didn’t have enough information to be sure either way. Which meant he should probably cut his losses and walk.
    And normally, Reece would have done just that, if it hadn’t been so damn long since he’d tasted a Latent. Or a Maja, for that matter, since none of the witches last night had been interested in doing more than teasing him.
    After all those months in Iraq, he was due for a night’s respite. One night’s sweet peace. It wasn’t so much to ask after everything he’d given up.
    â€œI hope I didn’t lure you away from our host,” the Latent said as he reached her. Her heartbeat slowed from its original startled slam, and she gave him a teasing smile. “Don’t you like golf?”
    â€œOther games interest me more,” Reece said. Her carnal scent teased his senses and soothed his jangling instincts. He let his eyes drift to the impressive cleavage mounding in the heart-shaped frame of her bodice. “Particularly with the right partner.”
    â€œPartner?” She took a sip of her champagne and pursed her sensual mouth. “Or opponent?”
    He toasted her with his own glass. “Partner, definitely. Partners share the same goals.”
    A spark of cynicism glinted in those clear blue eyes. “Nobody ever really has the same goals. The best you get is similarity. The focus is always different, no matter what it seems on the surface.”
    He studied her, intrigued. “Depends on the game,