Mortal Temptations Read Online Free PDF Page B

off, his heart squeezing. “Let’s just say it won’t be pretty.”
    She gave him a speculative look. “Is that the line you use on all the women whose stores you break into?”
    “Feel me.” Nico took her palm and pressed it to his cheek.
    She flinched when she felt his burning skin. “What’s wrong? Are you feverish?”
    “No. Cursed.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Let me touch you, Patricia. Let me spread you and pleasure you—I have to. I need to.” His heart was banging so hard it was making him sick. “Please.”
    “Why?” She pushed away from him, and he had to let her go. He couldn’t force her. If she didn’t want him, then he’d simply have to suffer.
    “It’s why we need to look at the ostracon. The writing on it could help us break the curse.”
    She looked bewildered but concerned. “What curse?”
    He loved her eyes. That blue green like the sun-dappled sea drew him to her. He wanted to kiss her eyelids, lick his way to her throat, part her blouse, and arouse her with his tongue.
    He kissed her palm and pressed it to his chest. “The pain won’t go away if you don’t let me fuck you.”
    She might not believe his words, but she must feel his heart beating like a piston, his skin on fire, see the pain in his eyes.
    “Why are you—why do you feel like this?” she asked.
    “The mother of the gods cursed us. Andreas and me. We must pleasure a woman like her slave, or we burn up. The curse won’t kill us, but it will make us wish we were dead.”
    Patricia’s eyes rounded in horror. “Why would someone do that to you?”
    He tried to shrug, but his body hurt. “Some goddesses can take righteous indignation a long way.”
    “And I can help you by letting you give me sexual pleasure?”
    He nodded, his throat too tight for speech.
    She let her fingers soften on his lips. “All right, but if this is the worst pickup line since pickup lines were invented . . .”
    His heart sped in hope. “You’ll let me pleasure you?”
    She smiled slightly. “Yes.”
    Nico let out his breath, some of the pain dissipating. “Thank all the gods. Put yourself in my hands, Patricia. You won’t regret it.”

     
    SHE already regretted it. Not because she was about to have sex with someone she barely knew but because she already felt a pull toward him in her heart. They’d have a good time in bed, then he’d go, and she’d be left bereft.
    That line in Shakespeare—“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”—was debatable. Wasn’t it better to live pain free than break your heart over someone who didn’t love you back?
    Nico pulled her closer, his feathery wings enclosing her in warmth. The fear she’d seen in his eyes fled as he bent to kiss her.
    She’d seen animals’ eyes go fixed and distant when they were in pain, and she’d seen exactly the same look in Nico’s just now. The pain tapped her psychic shields, pressing until she feared to lower them even slightly. If she could sense that black taint through her strongest shields, his pain must be incredible. And new. She hadn’t seen it before, not when she’d first met him, not when she’d looked fully at him and Andreas.
    The curse? If she could help banish it, well then, who was she to hold back?
    He opened her mouth with lavish strokes. He tasted like musk and spice, his teeth sharp points on her lips. His palm slid to cup her buttocks, and the tips of his wings slid under her shirt, pushing it open and up.
    The feel of the feathers on her bare skin was strange and incredibly erotic. Nico smiled as he pushed away her shirt and pulled her against his bare chest.
    He unlocked her bra with his fingers and pushed it off. Still twining her in feathers, he backed up a step and looked down at her.
    Warmth pooled in her belly as his gaze turned appreciative. He cupped her breasts in his hands, pushing them higher, the nipples tight and dark.
    “Hold them for me,” he said.
    She gave him a startled look, then