Free Atlanta Heat by Lora Leigh Page A

years.
    “Give us a chance, Em.” He touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, brushed her lips with his thumb. “Just a chance for more than a one-night stand. Can you do that?”
    She would give him her life if he needed it.
    “I don’t know how to do this.” She swallowed, the movement difficult with the emotions clogging her throat.
    His smile was rough, rugged, and filled with sensual, wicked certainty.
    “We’ll learn together. Learn with me, Emerson. God, baby, learn with me.”
    The kiss took her by surprise, as did the roiling emotions that fired in his eyes a second before he took her lips. It was fiery, demanding, hungry. So hungry it seemed to feed her own hunger, to stoke it with ruthless licks, rough nips and pure demand.
    The sheet fell away from her body and within seconds they were back in bed.

T EN
    DRACK WAS AN UNFEELING creature. She had no emotions, no loyalty, no sense of honor or dishonor. She didn’t care what day it was, what part of the day it was, and she had no particular feelings for the creature that she shared her space with.
    She knew he was strong. She knew that pitting her own strength against his wasn’t advisable because he would only lock her into the cage when she wanted to be free to roam rather than giving her the freedom to come and go as she pleased.
    She wasn’t a thoughtful creature. She didn’t think, plot, or plan. She didn’t particularly care about anything but where the next meal was coming from and the occasional need to mate.
    But there was one thing Drack did hate. Drack hated guns. She hated the scent of them, she hated the feel of them, and she particularly hated the nasty wounds they had once torn into her body.She hated them to the point that even when the creature who housed her carried one, she felt nothing more than the overriding instinct to kill. To destroy. Pain was the one memory, the one instinct that held sway when she felt the vibration of the small door open in the bathroom.
    That door led to dark places, places where she could depend on a source of food if she ever reached it. Not that the creature didn’t keep her well fed, but she loved the hunt.
    Tonight she would hunt more than rodents or lizards. Her slitted eyes narrowed, her tongue tested the air, and a hiss of rage left her throat as she butted against the glass that held her confined.
    She wanted out. Why wasn’t the creature who slept with his mate in the soft nest moving? He should be awakening. Didn’t he smell the death moving in, the weapon held by the creature that moved into the room?
    Drack watched from her glass-enclosed cage, hissed and slithered to where the door latched. Her tongue flicked, testing the air, and she smelled the offensive scent of evil.
    Instinct and rage converged as she lay coiled, tense, waiting. The door would open, and when it did, she would be free. When it did, the evil that had stepped into her lair would die.
    She knew it would open. It always opened. No one entered for long without detection. The creature who housed her, he would give her her chance. When he did, she would kill.
    *   *   *
    MACEY CAME AWAKE CERTAIN in the knowledge that somehow, some way, he had managed to fuck up. How had he done it? Had he set the security parameters wrong? Had a power supply failed?
    It didn’t make sense. He was careful, he was always careful, especially when it came to his cave. He had one main entrance, blocked by pure steel and set with enough alarms to bring down the house. There was a bolt hole, just as heavily secured, that led to a sewer drain beneath the streets and any number of manholes scattered throughout the city.
    The bolt hole should have been even harder to find than the main entrance, but someone had managed to not only find it, but to crack his security as well. And that someone had managed to slip into the bedroom where he slept with Emerson.
    He could hear Drack scraping against the door to her glass cage. A door that should