Running With the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

than the head of her department learning how she’d earned her tuition last year.
    She was dead broke. Her grant application had disappeared again. Already up to her neck in student loans, she couldn’t get another one at this late date. And to make matters worse, she’d been a victim of online identity theft. Until her financial mess was straightened out, no bank would even loan her a pen.
    “No deal. If I’m helping you I lose my only chance to make some cash. Then I forfeit my place in the doctoral program.”
    He paused. “I can arrange to pay you.”
    Rage distorted her vision. She reared back until her head connected with his nose.
    “Ouch! Goddammit! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
    “I am not a whore.”
    “I know. I wouldn’t be paying you for sex. You’d be paid as an informant.”
    “No difference.”
    Drake spun her around and loomed over her. Dangerous. Sexy. Ill-tempered. In short, an alpha male used to getting his way.
    “Big difference. We will be working together.”
    “Not in this lifetime.”
    “Not negotiable, Kenna.” His silky hair brushed her forehead when his soft lips grazed her ear. “But cheer up, there are other fringe benefits.”
    Her knees went weak, her fickle body softened. How was she supposed to resist him when he was so…overpoweringly male? “Like what?”
    “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
    His eyes and his body silently spelled H-O-T S-E-X.
    “I can’t believe the federal government would condone this type of behavior.”
    “Not only does Uncle Sam condone it,” he muttered thickly against her throat, “it is expected that we’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Goddamn you smell good.”
    Kenna forced herself not to react to his bone-melting touches and shoved him away. “Including ‘doing’ me?”
    “Yes. But don’t play coy. You reluctantly agreeing to act like my girlfriend doesn’t explain the chemistry that erupted between us from the moment I saw you.”
    She didn’t deny it. There’d been an unusual, unexplainable magnetism drawing them together since the fateful moment they’d set eyes on each other at the Broken Arrow Campground.
    His enticing lips moved closer. Hers parted in response.
    To prove his point, he caught her face in his hands and leveled her with a brutal kiss. He explored every inch of her mouth. Slicking his tongue over her teeth, tickling the roof of her mouth, gently sucking her tongue. His lips were hard and then fleeting.
    Kenna melted, losing herself in the way his long lean lines molded so perfectly to her lush form. The way his uncontrollable hunger made her feel wholly feminine and surprisingly secure.
    Yet despite the soft tangle and retreat of his tongue, the strange rightness of his mouth controlling hers, she withdrew. Scared her to death, the sexual longings he brought to the surface.
    Not to mention the power he had to screw up her life.
    What the hell had she been thinking? She shoved him away. “Forget it. I-I have to go.”
    Drake asked mildly, “And where’s the fire?”
    “Besides in your pants?”
    He smiled. “You put it there, hot stuff.”
    “You are a menace. I’m going back inside to tell Marissa this whole thing was a big joke.”
    His playfulness vanished. “I’m not laughing. You will be at that party with me even if I have to fasten one of those fancy rhinestone dog collars around your neck and muzzle you.”
    “You wouldn’t dare!”
    “Yes, I would. Be warned: if you try to run from me again, I’ll break out the handcuffs.”

    “Forget it, perv.” She threw her purse strap over her shoulder and spun on her heel.
    Kenna didn’t get far in those ridiculously sexy shoes. When she stumbled Drake caught her and whipped her back around.
    His steel-toed boots bumped her sky-high red sandals and he completely invaded her personal space.
    The little spitfire stood her ground. “Back off, March. I need time to think.”
    “No. You need to wrap your brain around the