Free Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 by Touch of Seduction Page A

could turn into trouble. He was fast discovering that having a
simple, platonic relationship with a woman created its own set of issues. And
when you made that woman a human female like Molly, who happened to possess the
ability to talk to ghosts, the problems coalesced into one huge, irritating
pain in the ass.
    Case in point: his current situation. Aiden had never
so much as even lip-locked with the pretty little blonde who was set to marry
Ian Buchanan, a man Aiden now considered a friend as well as a colleague, and
yet here he was, simply because Molly had called and asked him to find Olivia
Harcourt. Of course, she’d been backed up by Hope Summers, her soon-to-be
sister-in-law. The bloody women had finagled their way into Shrader’s heart and
he’d somehow found himself becoming “friends” with them. It was enough to make
a hardcore son of a bitch’s stomach turn.
    And Molly had had no qualms about sending “her buddy
Shrader” on her quest.
    Frustration rode him hard, and he could feel the same
sizzling emotion vibrating off Olivia as her car ate up miles of highway. Now
that he was driving and she’d had time to sit and think about everything that
had happened, he was sure she’d put together a long list of questions for him about
her stepsisters, but they could hardly have that conversation now, while Jamie
was in the backseat, not quite asleep yet. Needing something to drown out the
buzz of lust and restlessness in his brain, he finally reached down and turned
on her radio. The latest Kings of Leon began playing from the CD player, and he
smiled. “At least you have better taste in music than you do in cars,” he
drawled.
    As she looked toward him in the shadowed interior,
Aiden could feel the heat from her gaze touching quietly upon the sharp angles
of his profile. It swept across the high slash of his right cheekbone, skimming
down the surprisingly straight line of his nose—considering how many times it’d
been broken—until it settled warmly against the corner of his mouth. His beast
reacted to the visual caress with an impatient stretch, as if to remind him of
its hungers. Not that he was in any danger of forgetting them.
    “There’s nothing wrong with my car,” she finally
replied, the slight huskiness of her words settling like a ball of fire in the
pit of his stomach, the heat spreading out to his extremities, burning beneath
his skin. Even his goddamn fingers and toes were prickling.
    Forcing himself to focus on her words, and not the
million and one other things he wanted to be doing to her at that moment, Aiden
bit down hard on the inside of his cheek until the pain helped him calm down a
little. “Yeah?” he managed to snort after a moment. “Doesn’t seem to be much
right with it, either.”
    “Did I momentarily space out and miss something?
Because I don’t recall asking for your opinion on the subject.”
    He whistled softly under his breath before flashing
her a cocky smile. “You’re quite the puzzle, aren’t you?”
    She appeared baffled by the question. “Is that
supposed to make sense to me?”
    He shrugged, flicking the windshield wipers on low as
an easy rain began beading against the glass. “Just that you’re not easy to
peg. To figure out. I mean, you’ve gone from being scared to death of me tonight
to mouthing off like a little hellion. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying
it. It’s somehow oddly refreshing.”
    “Glad to be so entertaining.” Her tone was dry, her
posture tense as she crossed her arms over the heavy swell of her chest.
    “Well, you’ll fit in great back at Ravenswing. Molly
and Hope are gonna love you. Hell, they’ll probably even ask you to join their
little human sisterhood.”
    “And who are Molly and Hope?” The sudden, unmistakable
edge to her words had him smiling again. “Your girlfriends?”
    Aiden gave another low whistle, strangely enjoying
their easy banter. “You think I’ve got two women living under the same