Read Online Twilight Illusions by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online Page A

the hell out of her, because she’d been thinking about getting closer to him. Wondering what would happen if she slipped her arms around his muscled neck and leaned against his broad chest. Would he hold her closer, harder? Push her away? Murder her?
    His hands fell to his sides. He lifted his ebony gaze to hers. “What do you mean by that? That it’s not much to risk?”
    Fears crept up on her. She battled them away. She wouldn’t talk about it. She wouldn’t think about it. And she damned well wouldn’t cry about it. Her eyes burned, but she blinked them cool again. What was so bad about death? Life hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park. “I’m leaving now. You said you’d let me go. So let me go.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Shannon. But I can’t.”
    The rush of anger was a welcome relief after the other things she’d been feeling. “I knew I couldn’t believe a word you said!” She brought her fist into his middle clean and fast and hard, smiling smugly when he staggered backward, doubling over. She turned and ran toward the doors.
    â€œStay put, damn you!” The doors thundered shut as if a gale force wind had driven them. She felt her eyes bulge, the shivering up the back of her neck, the tensing of her spine.
    She turned very slowly. He was just unbending himself, one hand pressed to the spot where she’d hit him. He looked angry. “How did you—”
    â€œI’m a magician, remember?” He grunted, standing straight again.
    â€œThe—the house is rigged?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œYou can’t keep me here.”
    â€œI’m not going to let you get yourself killed. Believe me, Shannon, I don’t like this any more than you do. But until this threat is removed, I’m your shadow. Whither thou goest and where thou lodgest and all that. I’ll be there.” He shook his head slowly, as if he’d just reached a decision and wasn’t at all pleased about it.
    â€œThat’s bull. You’re up to something. You want something from me. Might as well put it on the table, Damien. I’m not buying what you’re selling.”
    He licked his lips and the action drew her gaze, sent hot images sizzling into her mind. His kisses. God, what would they feel like? The thought seared her from the inside out.
    â€œI need to see her body,” he said at last.
    She blinked, and dragged her attention away from his mouth. “You what?”
    â€œI want to see your friend.”
    Shannon’s stomach clenched like a fist. “For God’s sake, why?”
    He averted his eyes, paced back and forth in front of the bookshelves. “I have to see for myself how she died.”
    She blinked again, a cold foreboding settling in her heart. “What do you think you can tell by seeing her? Do you have any knowledge of forensic pathology? Have you ever studied death, Damien?”
    His head came up, eyes level with hers, and she thought there couldn’t have been more pain in them if she’d shot him through the heart. “All my life,” he whispered.
    Â 
    â€œI must be insane.” Her voice was near his ear, a harsh rasp as they crouched in the shrubbery near the rear entrance of Arista’s medical examiner’s office. “I’ve been calling every day to try and get her body released for burial. They keep putting me off, saying there are still more tests to be run. They wouldn’t even let me see her.” She parted a tangle of branches and peered through.
    Damien snagged her waist with his arm and pulled her down beside him again. She was noisy and in constant motion. Clandestine surveillance could never have been one of her strengths as a private investigator. “Sit still,” he warned. But then he had trouble following his own advice. His arm remained around her tiny waist, despite his mind’s commands that it move away. Her right