Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) Read Online Free Page A

car. “You need me to dial nine-one-one?”
    “I’m not the bad guy here,” he whispered, looking down at me. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
    I nodded and then swallowed, searching for my words—even if they were only primal ones—because standing here mute wasn’t my best look. I believed what he’d said. I don’t know why, but I did. I just didn’t know how to react to them.
    “I’m okay, Hanna,” I lied, but used the opportunity to push Caleb off of me and turned to hurriedly unlock my car door. “I’ll be right behind you,” I told her.
    “Good, because I’d hate to have such a good customer arrested for harassment!” Hanna yelled. “But I will so don’t you forget it, buddy!”
    Caleb had backed away from the car by the time I pulled the door open and slipped inside. I refused to look out the window to see what he was doing now, just put the key in the ignition and prayed it would actually start this time. It did, after some spit and sputtering action that was beyond embarrassing. On my nod, Hanna pulled her car up slowly and I moved my vehicle outof the parking spot. We both left the parking lot without looking back. Or, okay, maybe Hanna didn’t look back, but I did.
    Caleb was still standing there, his hands in his pockets once more, his intense gaze still on me and my car, even though I was coming up on the intersection almost half a block away. Of course it was dark and I couldn’t really tell that he was looking at me, but I knew it, I could feel it almost as if his presence was right in the passenger seat beside me. It was an eerie feeling, an unfamiliar one, a warm and slightly satisfying one that I considered myself all kinds of a romantic fool for entertaining. But as I turned the corner, officially ending the visual contact between us, I smiled. Just a small one but one that warmed me all over as I imagined Caleb’s intense gaze, his warm body, and those intriguing eyes. In one of my romance novels he would be a hero, the brooding, sulking, dark hero that scared the heroine at first then kissed her until she melted.
    Or he was the serial killer that stalked the spineless heroine who was naïve enough to fall for his brooding good looks. A nervous chuckle erupted in my chest and I shook my head, continuing my drive home while politely informing my inner romantic that Caleb and his creepy threats were not a good thing. Definitely not a good thing at all.

CHAPTER 3
Caleb
    If he touched her again I was not only going to break his arm, I was going to break both arms, then his legs, then I was just going to kill the SOB. That’s how I was feeling the moment I turned into the bar parking lot, three nights later. I’d purposely stayed away because her words, “he’s my boyfriend and you’re not” still rang in my ears. Even though that probably wasn’t an exact quote, it had the same punch-in-my-gut result.
    She was right, I wasn’t her boyfriend, so I really didn’t have a right to act possessive and protective of her. Hell, I’d only learned her name because her available-anytime-you-want friend—whose name I also now knew was Hanna—had yelled it across the parking lot. So from a factual standpoint, I probably should have minded my own business, but from a Shadow Shifter standpoint, that was impossible.
    When that asshole—who had been identified by Zoe as Dex—had grabbed her by the arm she’d been afraid. The tangy, citrus scent of fear had wafted fresh and potent all the way across the bar, dangling in front of me like the red cape in front of a bull. I’d been able to restrain my reaction at that particular moment, but that had only been temporary. I wanted to let her know she was safe and that I would protect her. The realization that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about my shifter instincts, possibly because she thought I was simply another human, was both startling and annoying as hell.
    Putting the truck in park and yanking the key out of the ignition,