Kiss of Temptation: The Kavanaugh Foundation, Book 3 (19 page)

“Trick?” She turned to the elevator, pressed the button furiously. “That wasn’t a trick! That was a violation! People don’t just do that, they don’t just get to—”

“You are right,” he said, loud enough to break through her angry tirade. Then, softer, “
People
do not do that.”

The cold shock was like ice water pumping through her veins. She turned to face him. She’d never seen eyes so sad, an expression so despondent.

Yes, she had.

She turned to her reflection in the polished black marble wall. The image was distorted, twisting her face into a pale skull with sunken eyes. She saw it again, in the floor.

And in the black marble world at her feet, her reflection was alone.

She walked to him, looking at the walls, the floor, the gleaming brushed-metal of the elevator doors. No hint that he stood there except his actual, physical presence. She came close enough to touch him, and did, pressing her palm to the side of his cold face. “You don’t have a reflection.”

“It makes it easier to stalk prey.” He gave her a grim smile. “I have lost too much humanity to have retained something so unnecessary as my reflection.”

Though his statement thoroughly creeped her out, she couldn’t move her hand from him. Maybe there really was some kind of connection between them, like he said. She couldn’t stop staring into his eyes, despite the limitless well of pain she saw there. “You really are…what you say you are.”

He leaned into her touch, took a breath that sounded like a sob. When he spoke, though, his words were controlled, almost polite. “Yes. A vampire.”

His hand captured hers and pulled it to his lips. For a weird, frightening moment she thought he would bite her. Instead, he kissed her palm on the fleshy pad below her thumb. Before she could react, his other arm snaked around her waist, pulled her tight to him, and he covered her mouth with his. He was hungry, desperate, his hands sliding to her shoulders, then down, capturing her arms to her sides, releasing her the next moment.

It had been years since Cassie had been kissed like this, like a woman and not an employee. The carefully drawn lines she’d put down for herself in black and white faded to gray and disappeared altogether. It was dangerous, angering, even, that he could do such a thing.

But this was not another of his hypnotic tricks. Maddening though it was, she could not resist. She opened her mouth under his, found herself just as wild and desperate as him.

Kiss of Temptation

Crista McHugh

She was sent to make him burn…

The Kavanaugh Foundation, Book 3

It takes a witch to outwit another witch, so when Daniela finds herself in the catacombs of Rome intent on retrieving the legendary Staff of Octavius, she’s prepared to wield her innate fire magic to claim the staff and keep it—and its overwhelming power—from getting into the wrong hands.

All her Foundation training, however, never prepared her for Luc.

One breath of her scent is enough to reawaken a thirst Luc hasn’t felt in six hundred years. It’s enough to make him almost forget his vow to keep the staff out of the wrong hands—and to never give in to his bloodlust. The moment he touches Daniela, the last shreds of his humanity revive with a violent fury and drive him to claim her…blood, body and soul.

He’s her enemy. He’s arrogant and infuriatingly secretive. And his kiss makes her want things she shouldn’t—like abandoning her mission to spend eternity in his arms. Crossing that line, though, could not only send them up in flames…it could condemn all mankind to hell on earth.
 

Warning: Contains a smolderingly hot (literally!) witch, a sexy, brooding vampire, wild sex you want to sink your teeth into, and a sensually charged romance that spans several lifetimes.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Kiss of Temptation

Copyright © 2011 by Crista McHugh

ISBN: 978-1-60928-459-6

Edited by Mary Hamilton

Cover by Kendra Egert

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: May 2011

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