Primal Instincts Read Online Free PDF Page B

considered the request and the best uses of manpower. “Have your look. But do it fast. Don’t get any locals involved.” The protocol for this op was to unobtrusively protect the people being targeted while keeping them out of the action no matter how much this annoyed the local Primes and werefolk.
    “Understood.”
    Francesca wanted to break the contact with Strahan. She wanted to step away, to deny the contact with him. But it was the permeating awareness that kept her in place as the connection went deeper by the second. He paid her no attention and she was glad of it.
    Strong. Ruthless. Leader. Completely focused and disciplined. Driven.
    The Perfect Prime, he’d been called. The Perfect Warrior. Francesca felt the truth of it permeating his spirit. His spirit thrilled her. It also terrified her, because this was just the sort of male she was strongly attracted to.
    Primes weren’t the only men who were perfect warriors.
    She’d known such a man and lost him and wasn’t going through that hell again. She didn’t have to. The hell was always going to be part of her.
    Francesca swore viciously and pulled away from Strahan. The emptiness that washed through her was easier to live with than the connection.
    “This is way too emo,” she muttered, angry with herself, and stared out the glass door at palm trees and colorful flowering bushes until the threat of tears passed. She’d lost all enthusiasm for spending time among the Dark Angels by the time Strahan came up to her.
    He took her arm again. “Let’s go.”
    Francesca jerked away but managed to squelch the impulse to shout at him to leave her alone. Her Matri had ordered this. She’d agreed to it. She couldn’t argue, but she didn’t have to take defeat gracefully.
    “Fine,” she said. “Let’s just get it over with.”
    He ignored her pouting and tilted an eyebrow sardonically at her. “I’m delighted to hear you say that.”
    He reached out again, but she walked out the door ahead of him toward a black SUV parked in front of the main door. Wanting his touch far too much to allow it, she projected haughty pride to cover how shaken she was.
    Flare’s mercurial. That’s what Flare is. One moment I think this might be a pleasant experience. Then she snaps at me, and there’s no fun in having my pride bitten.
    Tobias drove in silence while his thoughts raged and physical awareness of the ice princess beside him fueled the heat of his mood. He ran his tongue over his slightly extended fangs, which ached to sink into Flare’s throat, her wrists, her thighs. He wanted his tongue on her nipple and his teeth in—
    Calm down! Eyes on the road. Mind on the op. No biting. I will
not
taste her. I’ll have her, but without blood. I will not take or give a single drop if I know what’s good for me.
    His aching fangs told him that tasting Flare would be the most erotic experience of his life. But he’d plenty of experience in ignoring his anatomy’s opinions. He’d worked through pain and fear and every other intense thing a body could go through. He’d even died once, and if a baby hadn’t been crying nearby he would happily have stayed that way. Intense attraction to one snotty beauty wasn’t going to conquer him after everything else he’d been through.
    Embarrassment was the main thing he had to fear at the moment. He was glad no one had called him and that Flare sat beside him in surly silence. He would not have enjoyed the obvious sign of arousal if he had to open his mouth. As it was, Flare was no doubt aware of all the heat coming off of him. She was no doubt wallowing in her famous power over every Prime in the universe.
    “Just how many Primes are there in the universe?” she asked.
    His gaze cut her way for an instant before he looked back at the busy freeway. He counted bright lights coming toward them from the opposite lanes of traffic, but he saw an afterimage of her curious look and the lush curve of Flare’s lips in a faint