Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t know, Shell.” She inched close, tried to touch my arm. I shifted away. That didn’t deter her in the least. “Daniel’s out somewhere, working as usual. Or so he says. And I don’t care one way or the other. I’m here with you. If that bothers you I can leave.”
    “It bothers me,” I said.
    “Try not to let it,” she said, “For the night.”
    “Another bad answer, Nevada.”
    “Please.”
    “What if I want beyond the night?”
    “Show me,” she whispered.
    “You’re a movable piece? You can come off of Daniel’s board?”
    “That’s possible.”
    “This is wrong. Even I have parameters.” I’d taken Taj from another man and a man had taken her from me in turn. Over the years I’d learned that karma was as insistent as violence.
    She nodded. “You’re right. It is wrong. I should go.”
    She prepared to leave. I reached for her, secured her wrist, pulled her indecently close to me. Rolled her sleeve up again, touched her bruise with two gentle fingers. Bent and moved her arm to my lips. Kissed her feverish skin. Several soft and tender pecks. We watched each other for a beat. And sinned in our minds. Sin always began there.
    “Why am I allowing this?” she asked helplessly as I tended to her bruise.
    I was more concerned with the sin in my mind than her question.
    Rather than trouble myself for an answer I leaned forward until our lips touched.
    Her tongue tasted like mint.
    She broke our very first kiss, sighed. Her gray eyes watched me intently. “I must be out of my mind.”
    I said, “I don’t detect any diminished acuity.”
    She smiled. “So full of surprises. I could listen to you talk all day. You’re so damn sexy. Dangerous and mysterious, too.”
    “Ditto.”
    “Me?” She pointed at herself, a coy schoolgirl’s smile on her lips.
    “Yes, you,” I said.
    She gazed toward the couple lying on the brown blanket. “Two dangerous and mysterious souls intersecting. That’s us.”
    “Can it last beyond the night?” I wondered.
    “Been with Daniel for two years,” she said.
    “It’s been good?”
    “I’d rather not answer that.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “I’m not reckless, Shell.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
    “Never?”
    “Never,” she said. “What about you?”
    I thought of Taj. The intensity of my feelings for her. Feelings that overwhelmed me from the very beginning. “Never,” I told Nevada, adding another blanket to our bed of lies.
    She smiled. “I suppose you must have a special place in my heart now.”
    “Daniel already has that,” I replied.
    A shadow fell across her face. “We’ve talked about marriage, Daniel and I.”
    “You’d be a lovely bride.”
    “Lovely.” She snickered. “Just so lovely.”
    “Nevada—”
    “I’d have to be very careful with you, Shell. Being with Daniel requires no care. It’s tough at times, for certain, but… You’re obviously a hard man. Just being around you is probably risky. What do you do for a living?”
    Jacoby Wilder. High school teammate, college roommate. I’d been the best man at his wedding. He’d been the most important of six that carried my mother’s casket. Later his own casket would come.
    Veronica.
    Ericka.
    “You’re right,” I told Nevada.
    “What?”
    “Just being around me is risky.”
    I hadn’t answered her question: What do you do for a living? Most would’ve sought further clarification, would’ve left me standing there if I didn’t provide it. Nevada simply nodded. Good thing. Explaining the intricacies of being a killer-for-hire has never suited me.
    “I’m thinking you should be fed with a long-handled spoon,” Nevada whispered after a moment.
    “Haven’t heard that one,” I said. “How’s that for a catchy slogan. I have to get some new business cards printed.”
    “I’m not reckless, Shell.”
    “So you’ve said. I’m inclined to think otherwise.”
    She attempted to slap me, a harbinger