Slayer's Kiss: Shadow Slayer, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

have a hobby.”
    He slid his finger along the sculpted wings of a raven. She’d painted the entire thing black but was planning to go back through and do more intricate details on the feathers. “Amazing,” he said. “This one looks real. You’re a true artist.”
    “An artist? Not quite.” She regarded the raven. “But I guess I’m getting a little better.”
    On a slow day around the apartments, she was grateful for time to work on her clay sculptures. It sucked to be an artist with no talent. In fact, most people had trouble seeing Kara as the “artsy” type at all. She thought of it more as a compulsion, a need to shape and mold the images that came to her in visions.
    “You could sell these.” He squinted at the blue cheese and put it back on the shelf. “Well, maybe not that one.”
    “Yeah, if I could learn to do dolphins frolicking in the waves and put San Diego in glitter at the bottom, I’d be in business.” But her dolphins looked like mutant mermaids…so, yeah, money was tight. If it weren’t for having her rent covered in exchange for managing the old apartment building, Kara would have long since resorted to the worst possible fate—a desk job. The Hoolecha Inn helped. But not much.
    Gavin tucked the shroud over the sculptures and reached for his drink. With rapt attention, Kara watched his throat work as he swallowed. When he was finished, he set the can on the counter. “Thank you, Kara. I’d better be going.”
    “Oh! I almost forgot. I’ve been saving your Union Tribune for you.” She walked quickly to the coffee table and assembled the piles of crinkled newsprint, trying to fold them neatly on her way back to Gavin. She hoped he didn’t notice that some of the sections were currently lining her shelves under the drying clay. “Here you go.”
    He eyed the disheveled stack. “How kind of you.”
    Kara was an expert at pretending to be interested in a man to get what she wanted, but she didn’t have the slightest clue how to seduce someone for real. “Gavin…do you want to stay?” She tried to make her voice alluring, but it came out as a strained croak.
    He stilled. “Stay?”
    “With me. Here.” Kara looked down, twining her fingers together. “I thought, you know…maybe we could get to know each other a little better. Share some secrets.” God, how was it possible she could simultaneously want to die of embarrassment and rip his fucking clothes off?
    Gavin swallowed, and his jacket fell limp in his grip to dangle by the tips of his fingers. “I can’t. I mean, I shouldn’t.”
    He paused and cleared his throat, but the look in his eyes and the tiny dark spot soaking through the front of his charcoal slacks made her feel like she was going to spontaneously combust. She shifted restlessly, unable to quell the heat building between her thighs.
    “Please?” Her voice cracked from the humiliation of it, but when he didn’t say a word, she pressed on. “I don’t want you to think I do this a lot. Actually, I never do this. But I want to. With you.”
    Gavin’s hands fisted at his sides and he took a ragged breath. “I won’t try to tell you I’m not interested.” He looked down at himself with a pained grin. “But I think I’ll just ask you to unlock the door, then call it a night.”
    The air left Kara’s lungs in a loud whoosh. It felt as if she’d literally been deflated by his rejection. “Sure. Of course.” She smiled at him. She could break down later. “Let me grab the other keys.”
    “Kara,” he said when she turned on her heel and fled to the master bedroom.
    She didn’t answer. There was nothing more to say. All she had to do was open his door, then she could find Abbey and take her frustration out on some deserving asshole who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
    But when she rounded the corner of the bed and reached down to the bottom drawer of her desk, what she saw hit her like a kick to the gut. “ Holy shit! ”
    There, on the