Free Summon Toren (Archangels Creed #3) by Azure Boone, Kenra Daniels

sounding small and tired. She indicated with a finger that he turn around. “Can’t wait for your coat, you’ll have to just deal with a half-naked woman. I hope you can?”
    Her tone said he’d better deal and not give her any problems with it, she had enough already. He smiled after he turned. “Of course I can.” He allowed a hint of insult into his tone for added measure.
    “Yes, of course you can. Don’t worry, I won't present any challenges to your virtue anyway. I’m my father’s daughter, the only thing not making me a man is what’s between my legs…or not.” Her derision tapered off toward the end of her sentence, and Toren heard the dark depression that lie had brought over the years.
    He suddenly wanted to smash in the face of every human who’d rejected her. “That’s not at all why I’m able to not look.”
    “Oh? Are you gay? Or married?”
    He chuckled. “No.”
    “Maybe you’re a virgin.” Her derogative tone said she knew he wasn’t.
    Toren tried to decide if her thinking that would help him in his cause to win her. He checked his coat again. “Are you done?”
    “Yes.”
    He returned his coat to hang above the stove and went to the food container where he'd left it sitting on the bed, taking care not to look at her. Directly. But his peripheral only teased his curiosity, making him want to examine what it was about her body that she thought was so masculine. Everything he could make out was delicate, intriguing female.
    He opened the food side of the ingenious container, reversing what Kassie had done to close it. “Hungry?” He handed her one of the napkin wrapped crusts and despite his best efforts, his gaze landed briefly on her chest.
    “Thought you wouldn’t look." She took the food, her bold gaze drilling into him.
    Toren choked on surprise. Before coming to Earth, he'd spent some time studying acceptable human social behavior. Samantha kept forcing him to reassess what he'd learned. “Sorry.” What else could he say?
    She snorted back, not really seeming to care. “There isn’t a thing there to see darling, but I’m damn well glad for it.”
    Toren looked her in the eyes, making sure not to look anywhere else. He didn’t know how to respond to that and the way she stared back, chewing her food, felt like a test. But how to pass?
    “I think…”
    She held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t bullshit me . I like you and if you bullshit me I won’t. I’ve come to terms with what I am and have no problems with it. It’s the opposite sex that needs to get a notion.”
    “A notion?” Toren sincerely didn’t understand where she was going with her logic.
    Her gaze turned nearly flinty as she leveled it on him. “Please. Pretending ignorance is so not becoming for you.” She took another bite and mumbled around her food, flicking her finger at him, eyes on his body, “You got a big man’s body, I have a small one. But cross me and see just what I can do with this small body. I assure you it isn’t feminine.”
    He grinned at her spunk. He loved that about her. “Are you trying to tempt me?”
    She raised her brows. “Tempt you? Honey,” she patted along her chest, “there isn’t a thing to tempt with. You don’t believe me? Here, feel, I’m not kidding.”
    Toren’s grin faded and he went stand by the stove, his back to her. Rage roared through him like a freight train, demanding he punish those responsible for her feelings of hurt and inadequacy. Knowing her father lay at the beginnings of all that pain made him anxious to meet the man. And stake him out in a desert for predators, as the TV westerns sometimes showed the Injuns—no, Native Americans—doing.
    “Sorry to disappoint you bubba, but—“
    Toren took a breath to get a handle on his anger so it wouldn't come out in his voice. “I’m not disappointed, quit pretending like you know me.”
    She snorted. “Whatever, Mr. Get Any Woman You Want. You men are all alike, you want the voluptuous bodies