Touch of Temptation Read Online Free PDF Page A

have been like comparing night to day. A flashy red Ferrari to a quirky little Mini Clubman.
    Hello? Earth to Chloe, the all-too-familiar voiceof her conscience hissed in her ear. Are you forgetting about the curse?
    Oh. My. God. For a few seconds there, she actually had forgotten, which was ridiculous—but come on. The gorgeous hunk had honestly claimed that he’d risked his life to save hers. What woman wouldn’t get a little muddled after hearing something like that?
    Still, she’d forgotten how careful she needed to be around men, because the instant she started talking to a guy, spending time with him, the curse that had plagued the Mallory witches for centuries would start to affect him. If he had even the slightest casual interest in her, the curse would blow that interest out of proportion, heightening it to an extreme, unnatural level. She’d seen it happen before, and it was happening again…
    Right. At. That. Moment.
    Chloe had heard things about the Lycan sex drive—not to mention Kellan Scott’s reputation. The guy liked women, and with all that adrenaline he’d said was burning through his system, he was probably burning on excess mojo, and here she was, cranking it up even higher.
    Though every female on the maternal side of her family tree had suffered from the Mallory curse, it had affected Chloe more strongly than anyone else in her family, and she’d never been able to figure out why. Maybe it was because she’d always tried too hard to contain it, determined to control it, that it seemed to work that much harder against her? Or maybe it was just one of those rotten quirks of nature that couldn’t be explained?
    Whatever the reason, she was like a walking, talking lightning rod when it came to others’ emotions. Ifsomeone hated her, like the Casus, then that hatred intensified until they boiled with it.
    And the same could be said for desire. For lust. But it wasn’t real. Was just an illusion. Like love at first sight and happily-ever-afters. At least for her. Chloe had seen her mother get lucky with Olivia’s father, and now Olivia had apparently found her own dream stud. So that meant her chances were shot. No way in hell was lightning going to strike three times in one family.
    Though it sounded maudlin, she’d always known she would live her life alone. So, her way of dealing with that knowledge had been to withdraw from the world, with the exception of her family and a handful of friends she’d made in college. She worked at home, running her own web design company, and made a good living. For safety, the Harcourt ranch-style family home in Kentucky had been remodeled into separate living quarters, enabling Chloe and her sisters to live close to one another, and yet retain a certain degree of privacy. As her eyes slid closed, she drew in a deep breath, and for a moment she could almost smell those familiar scents that reminded her of home. Smells she missed so much it was a physical ache inside her heart. Liv’s warm sugar cookies baking in the oven. The smoky blend of Monica’s favorite perfume. Her niece’s strawberry bubble bath.
    She missed her family so much she could feel the pain like a wound. Something torn open, bleeding and raw, that no amount of time was going to heal.
    After the death of their parents, the three of them had only had each other, and their sisterly bonds had grown into ones of true friendship. Raine had told her about what had happened to Monica, but Chloe could scarcely allow herself to believe it. Her heart broke forher older sister and for her niece, Jamie, who had absolutely adored her mother. The sorrow Chloe felt over the loss of her sister would have overshadowed everything else—her fear, her anger, her worry—if it weren’t for the change building within her. That sorrow could have grown so great that she was consumed by it, but the primal creature fighting to get out of her was determined to keep her focused on survival, refusing to let her