Playing with Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

gnarled burn scar along his forearm—evidence of post-conversion serum lovemaking attempt number one. Number two stretched along the length of his inner thigh, grazing his balls.
    There was no number three. The second it became clear that her sexual charms came with a nasty third-degree side effect, Patrick no longer had any use for her.
    “Stop the spoiled brat act for five minutes,” he said. “How well can you control yourself?”
    “If you’re asking if I shoot off random flames when a man has my nipple between his teeth, the answer is no.”
    Patrick’s eyebrow rose. For the first time, genuine interest sparkled in his eyes. His gaze flickered to her legs, running the length of them and settling where they met. “Is that so? How do you manage?”
    “Easy.” She crossed her legs tighter and scowled. “I don’t let men anywhere near my nipples.”
    His laugh was everything she remembered disliking about the man—condescending and confident and cruel.
    “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve gone celibate? I’ve never met a girl so ready to drop on all fours at the sound of a zipper falling.”
    One. Two. Three. Inhale. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Four. Five. Six. Exhale. No matter how good it would feel to scar his carefully preserved and Botoxed face. She might have power, but she wasn’t stupid.
    She waited a full twenty seconds before she was able to speak. “And that should be all the evidence you need. A few years ago, a remark like that would have had us both in trouble. Don’t worry, I’m in control now.”
    That kind of control hadn’t been easy. Fiona knew, from taping a candy thermometer to her stomach, that her body temperature shot to about two hundred degrees when she fired. If she suppressed the release for too long, her temperature rose even higher. She never had so much as a single singed hair afterwards, though she had to be careful of metal fasteners, shoes, and non-porous clothes.
    When she’d first taken the conversion serum, before she was used to the effects, she’d once gotten way too worked up in a pair of tight gold lamé pants on the middle of a dance floor. The fabric had absorbed the heat in ways that regular cotton didn’t, holding it against her skin and causing quite a bit of pain before she scrambled out of them and ran, buck naked, out the door.
    She was much better now. The other day had been proof of that. Ian had placed his hand on her arm at the scene of the tree fire and hadn’t even flinched. If she could control herself around Ian, she could do it with Patrick, too.
    “Look at me,” she added with a sneer. “I’m practically an ice queen.”
    He didn’t even blink, though a light sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “Is that what you call it? It must be a hundred degrees in here.”
    “So open a window. Or better yet, leave.”
    “Oh, I’m not going anywhere, Fiona. You’re a danger to the people. I think the good town of Ashland deserves to know what it’s dealing with.”
    “The only person I’m a danger to right now is you.” She stood and pulled open the door, waiting for him to take the hint. He rose from the couch and came so close his fingers brushed along her upper arm. She stiffened. Normally she ached for human contact, savored those minor brushes of skin on skin. But Patrick’s touch just pissed her off.
    Before she could react, he sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back, shaking himself. Her skin was hot. Maybe her restraint wasn’t as great as she’d thought.
    “I don’t know what you want, Patrick, but you won’t find it here.” She refused to lower her gaze from his steely blue eyes. “You wouldn’t dare expose me because you know I can do the same thing to you.”
    “You’re so adorable when you’re angry. And when you’re so painfully, blatantly wrong.” He snared a tendril of her hair and wound it around his finger with intense focus. What was with men and their obsession with her hair