My Soul to Keep Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Party at Scott’s house. Doug Fuller rammed my parked car with an ’08 Mustang.”
    “Oh, no!” Harmony stopped in the kitchen doorway, holding the swinging door open with one palm. “You’re insured, right?”
    “Liability only.” That’s all I could afford, working twelve hours a week at the Cinemark. “But Doug’s parents are loaded, and there’s no way they can say I’m at fault. I wasn’t even in the car.”
    “Well, that’s good at least, right?” I nodded, and she waved one hand toward the short hallway branching off from the opposite side of the living room. “Go wake up van Winkle and see if you can get him to eat something. I’m making apple-cinnamon muffins.”
    Harmony was always baking something, and always from scratch. She was really more like a grandmother than a mom, in that respect, though she looked more like Nash’s older sister. She was eighty-two years old, with the face and body of a thirty-year-old.
    So far, slow postpuberty aging was the only real advantage I’d discovered to being a bean sidhe. My father was one hundred thirty-two and didn’t look a day over forty.
    Nash didn’t answer when I knocked, so I slipped into his room, then closed the door and leaned against it, watching him sleep. He looked so vulnerable in his boxers, one side of his face buried in the pillow, one leg tangled near the bottom of his sheet.
    I knelt by the bed and brushed thick brown hair from his forehead. The room was warm, but his skin was cool, so I started to cover him up, but before I could, his face twisted into a grimace, his eyes still squeezed shut.
    He was breathing too fast. Almost panting. His teethground together, then he made a helpless mewling sound. His arms tensed. He clenched handfuls of the fitted sheet.
    I watched Nash’s nightmare from the outside, trying to decide if I should wake him up or let the dream play out. But then his eyes flew open and he gasped, his gaze still unfocused. He scuttled over the mattress, bare chest heaving, and stood against the far wall, staring across the bed at me. His irises churned in terror for several seconds before recognition settled into place and by then my own heart was racing in response to his fear.
    “Kaylee?” He whispered my name, like he wasn’t sure he could trust his own eyes.
    “Yeah, it’s me.” I stood as his breathing slowed and he started to calm down. “Nightmare?”
    He rubbed both hands over his face, and when he met my gaze again he was calm, back in control of his expression. And of his eyes. “Yeah, I guess.”
    “What was it about?”
    “I don’t remember.” He frowned and sank onto the mattress. “I just know it was bad. But the waking up part is good so far…”
    Nash pulled me onto his lap. “So, what’s with the personal wake-up?” He swept my hair over one shoulder and suddenly I was acutely aware that he was half-naked and now very close. “Phone calls just aren’t as satisfying anymore?” he whispered, trailing feather-soft kisses down my neck.
    He leaned us both back, and before I even realized what had happened, I was lying on his bed, his weight pressing me into the mattress. His lips trailed down my neck again and his hand roamed over my shirt, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to stop him. He’d waited long enough. I wanted to just let it happen…
    My next exhale was ragged, and I couldn’t control my racing pulse.
    “I, uh…” What was I saying? What did he ask? Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter….
    His hand slid beneath my shirt, but his fingers were freezing on my skin, and the shock woke me up. Irritated, I pulled Nash away and sat up to frown at him. “Are you Influencing me?”
    He shrugged, a heated grin turned up one side of his mouth. “Just helping you relax.”
    “Don’t Influence me, Nash!” I stood, struggling to sustain my anger with his voice still slithering through my mind.
    “Don’t ever do that to me when I’m not singing for someone’s