Underworld Read Online Free PDF Page B

as well — lost their virginity in the United States was seventeen … my age ?
    Apparently not.
    “What I’m trying to say,” I said, my cheeks burning brighter, “is that I’m not very experienced with men. So this morning when I woke up and found you in bed beside me, while it was really, super nice — don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much — it kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was….
    “Ready for —?” He broke off, and then frowned as if it had all become clear. “Wait.” He dropped his arms from around my waist and took a step away from me. “You think I spent the night with you?”
    “Didn’t you?” I blinked back at him. “There’s only the one bed. And … well, you were in it when I woke up.”
    Thunder boomed overhead. It wasn’t as loud as the violent cracks that had occurred in my dream. Although the rumbles were long enough — and intense enough — that the silverware on the table began to make an eerie tinkling sound.
    And my bird, who’d been calmly cleaning herself on the back of my chair, suddenly took off, seeking shelter on the highest bookshelf against the far wall.
    I realized I’d just insulted my host, and no joke was going to get me out of it this time.
    “For your information, Pierce,” John said, his tone almost disturbingly calm — but his eyes flashed the same shade as the stone around my neck, which had gone the color of the metal studs at his wrists — “I spent most of last night on the couch. Until one point early this morning, when I heard you call my name. You were crying in your sleep.”
    The salt water I’d tasted on my lips. Not due to rain from a violent hurricane, but from the tears I’d shed, watching him die in front of me.
    “Oh,” I said uncomfortably. “John, I’m so —”
    It turned out he wasn’t finished.
    “I put my arms around you to try to comfort you , because I know what this place can be like, at least at first. It’s not exactly hell, but it’s the next closest place to it. You wouldn’t let go of me. You held on to me like you were drowning, and I was your only lifeline.”
    I swallowed, astonished at how close he’d come to describing my dream … except it had been the other way around. I’d been his lifeline; only he’d let go of me, sacrificing himself so that I could live.
    “Right,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, especially since my mother had always worried so much about my talking in my sleep. On the other hand, I had been upfront with him about my lack of experience when it came to men. “But this is good, see?” I reached out to take his hand. “I told you I could never hate you —”
    He pulled his hand away, exactly like in my dream. Well, not exactly, because he wasn’t being sucked from my grasp by a giant ocean swell. Instead, he’d dropped my fingers because he was leaving to go sort the souls of the dead.
    “You will,” he assured me, bitterly. “You’re already regretting your decision to — what was it you called it? Oh, right — cohabitate with me.”
    “No,” I insisted. “I’m not. All I said was that I want to take things more slowly —”
    That had nothing to do with him — it had to do with me and my fear of not being able to control myself when he was kissing me. It was too humiliating to admit that out loud, however.
    “We can take things as slowly as you want, but you know it’s too late now to change your mind, Pierce,” he said, in a warning tone.
    “Of course,” I said. I could see I had approached this all wrong. Where, when you actually needed one, was one of those annoying women’s magazines with advice on how to handle your man? Although that advice probably didn’t apply to death deities. “Because the Furies are after me. And I promised you that I wouldn’t try to escape. That