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

of things to come, I suppose.
    I took her offending hand, gripped it at the wrist, pulled her close to me again, mashed my lips against hers, and eased my tongue into her receptive mouth. “You can have me, any way you want, Shell,” she said, breathless, as I broke the kiss a beat later.
    “I know.”
    “You’re arrogant.”
    I shook my head. “I recognize fate.”
    “I’m doing this. But it can’t be good.”
    “I disagree. It is good, Nevada.”
     

TWO
     
    I WAS WRONG. IT wasn’t good.

    A NAKED WOMAN SLEPT in my bed, her perfectly round breasts exposed above a thin white sheet that rose no farther than her waist, her nipples like ripe blackberries, her brown skin tinged with shades of red courtesy of a Cherokee leaf somewhere on her family oak. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, framing her lovely face. Her breathing was new-blacktop smooth in sleep. Altogether different than the deep-throated moans that had come from her when we’d made love earlier in the night. I thought of us lying together, just minutes before, my arm around her, her head resting on my chest, the fog of her breath warming my skin. She’d been a vigorous lover. The sex was more than spectacular. Despite that, the OneRepublic ringtone sounding from my cell phone had made me slide from her embrace and out of bed like a thief in the night.
    “Apologize”, Nevada’s own personal ringtone.
    “Dashiell?” she said in my ear.
    The trees had shed their leaves several times since that first meeting in the Farmer’s Market. Since I’d stalked Nevada Barnes for the better part of a day. Then stole her away from her abusive lover.
    During the course of the years since that introduction, Nevada’s voice had completely changed for me. No longer did it tickle my ears. No longer was it ice-cold lemonade. It had turned into lukewarm, liquid Drano, instead. A harsh sentiment, I know, but right as rain.
    “Dashiell?”
    “Don’t call me that,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Don’t call me that.”
    “You’re being immature, Dashiell.”
    “I’m hanging up.”
    “Okay, okay, Shell .”
    “Better.”
    “Childish,” she said.
    “What do you want, Nevada? Something wrong with the water heater again?”
    I was little more than a landlord and my past lover little more than a tenant. The home in which she lived didn’t have a paper trail that would lead back to either of us. Still, it was clearly mine and I insisted she live in it, even after our breakup. I’d walked in dangerous circles and had enemies at every turn. Because of this, it wasn’t in Nevada’s best interest to live in the place that actually had her name on the lease.
    “If you’re going to hold my living here over my head, I can always move back to my place, Dashiell?”
    “Didn’t I say not to call me that?”
    “Oh my goodness…” She sighed into the receiver. “I’m trying. Give me a break.”
    “Nevada’s trying,” I said. “Somebody alert Congress.”
    “You’re whispering,” she noted. “I take it you’re not alone.”
    “That’s a condition I try to avoid. You know this.”
    “That I do, Shell. That I do.”
    Weary is the best way to describe her voice. As though her back was ready to give out from the immense weight of whatever she’d been carrying. She filled the next twenty seconds with silence. I closed my eyes, squeezed them and willed away a cluster headache. Nevada had a way of working herself into my marrow. I hated her for that. I loved her for it, as well. Our relationship was more complex and difficult to understand than I would ever be comfortable with. Discomfort made me a hard man to deal with.
    “Are we going to be like this forever?” she said.
    “Probably,” I said. “I’d imagine so.”
    “Been through a lot with you, babe,” she said. Babe . As if we were still in a place where that was appropriate. I let it go, said, “And vice versa. What’s the point, Nevada?”
    I’m certain she nodded. That’s how it was