Boiling Point Read Online Free Page A

Cooper belonged to. Someone, somewhere, had found out what the humans were up to and where the planned experimentation would occur. Securing the university just became a lot more challenging.
    Fauna .
    Cooper raced through the building. Silence no longer mattered. Whoever had snuck in already knew he was there and what he was. Chances were, the elemental knew Fauna was hiding outside, too.
    Cooper began transferring himself into pure heat energy as he approached the window. As he reached for the metal frame, his fingers brushed the glass. Chilled pain shot up his arm, and dropped his core temperature. Heat conducted through the frame at a cooler rate, keeping his molecular structure more solid than it should have been as he projected himself out of the building to reform on the other side.
    Cooper rematerialized, doubled in pain as he stumbled to the place where he’d left Fauna. Muscle spasms racked his body and dropped him to his knees. If he’d been prepared for the fumble, he could have compensated, reheated, and transported. But he hadn’t and the result seized his every cell.
    “Cooper?” Fauna called in a harsh whisper.
    “Fauna, you’re okay,” he said, relieved. Cooper fell to his knees at her feet. He tucked his chin to his chest, his hands into his armpits as he folded his arms across his chest, shivering.
    “What happened to you? Are you okay? I saw someone running out of the building just seconds before you. Were you seen? Did he hurt you?”
    A harsh laugh escaped him. “I’m fine. I jammed my hands on the way out,” he lied. He kept his face in shadow. If she saw him now, she’d know what he was. His eyes would be more red than brown, and his skin would appear scaled like the salamander he was.
    Given her reaction to other faeries, he knew she wouldn’t like it. Worse, she might insist he leave the project, putting both their kinds at risk. Cloning was of great interest to all sentient beings. It was a simmering cauldron of research, capable of making or destroying them all.
    Right now, though, he needed heat. Lots of heat. With the lovely Fauna Harper leaning over him, concern dripping from her voice as she hovered to protect him from the unseen enemy, an enemy she had no way of knowing how to fight, he couldn’t help but want to tuck her in his arms close to his heart.
    Maybe she wouldn’t notice the scales if he kissed her in the dark. Maybe he could just sample some of her heat, using intimacy to generate more of it, and sip from her until his appearance had returned to normal.
    There was a lot about Fauna he wanted to sample. A helluva lot.
    Cooper caught her wrist and drew her down. He kept his eyes closed, hiding the bright red he knew she’d see if he let her. It was a risk, but he needed heat. The insulating properties of glass still stung at his cells. It didn’t help that he’d completed the transfer of energy anyway. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to kiss Fauna the first time, or the reason, but he’d take his excuses where he could get them.
    His sharp pull jerked Fauna off balance and a small yelp escaped her as she dumped into his arms.
    “What the—?”
    Cooper silenced her with a kiss. Her cheeks were touched with gossamer coolness of Texas autumn evening. Not noticeable to most, it was to someone whose existence revolved around heat and the lack of it.
    Her fists bunched in his shirt just below his shoulders, and as he kissed her, holding his lips against hers, he could already feel the coolness leave her cheeks and her lips plump with warmth.
    Fauna twisted her face away from his. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “I would think it’s obvious,” he murmured. The kiss had helped, but ended too soon to completely resolve his problem.
    “Bad timing,” she snapped.
    “If I’d kissed you some other moment, it would have been all right?” he teased.
    “No!”
    Cooper nuzzled her neck, still hiding his face from her and trying to turn her on. “You smell