A Taste of Winter: 1 (Red Masks) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d closed her eyes
and clamped her legs around him when she came. And he would have another taste
of Winter before the week was through.
    The thought of her round and naked ass bent across his lap,
his palm stinging from the smack of flesh against flesh while she pleaded with
him for mercy made him surly with desire, the throb between his legs growing to
a point where he could barely manage to stand and pace across the room.
    His lovely employee in no way resembled any other woman he’d
fucked in the past, her cold and calm exterior more than at odds with the
heated submission he’d demanded and received. Even the glares of defiance she’d
continued to give him were enough to make his blood boil hotter.
    And the way she’d spoken to him today…
    With a growl of pure disgust that he could not control any
part of him at all, Ryan picked up the phone, continuing to prowl his office
like a wounded beast as he placed his order and gave the address.
    Soon, Miss Winter—very soon—you will have another lesson
in obedience.
    If his balls ached for the entire week so be it.
    He couldn’t get the thought of her out of his mind.

Chapter Three
     
    While not totally illegal, Alaina’s inspection of the
property hadn’t been approved by the city or Mr. Saladar so she parked her car
a few yards down the street and strolled casually toward the rusted fence that
encircled the area, a barrage of no-trespassing signs posted along its
perimeter.
    Since the fence was too high for her to climb, she settled
for wrenching a broken piece of it wide enough to slide through, pulling it
back down behind her as she turned to inspect the area. What had once been a
brick-paved drive was now pitted and strewn with weeds that had pushed up
between the blocks, crumbling them to dust in places. But she thought there
would be enough left to recycle into a new driveway and the mingling of the old
and new would be both aesthetically pleasing and a historical draw for Mr.
Saladar.
    She pulled the small notebook from her bag and jotted down
her ideas as she made her way closer to the building itself.
    Originally built as a bank in 1828, it had been converted
into a hospital during the Civil War and later used as an orphanage until it
had been abandoned in the seventies. Greek Revival style, it sported the
signature pointed roof above a full porch with huge round columns—although
broken and battered they still sported lovely scrolled spirals of Ionic design.
She knew a company who made excellent reproductions of the columns and jotted
down another note.
    Two-storied at its core, it boasted single-level rounded
wings on either side, which gave it an ornate appearance. She could just
imagine those circular rooms filled with lush and cozy couches, a piano on one
side and perhaps an office on the other. The bedrooms would remain upstairs
with added bathrooms for modern convenience.
    Although she couldn’t gain access to the interior of the
building, by scraping off some well-crusted dust and peeking through the
crumbling wood that boarded up the windows she could see that the interior of
the place was in better shape than she’d expected. No graffiti marred the walls
and there was no major water damage as far as she could tell. Still it would
have to be inspected and renovated from the foundation to the roof, a project
she found both daunting and exhilarating.
    She picked her way through the remnants of what had once
been elegant flowerbeds toward the back of the building, inhaling the fragrance
of a few antique roses still blooming along the walls and setting her
imagination free as she sketched garden after garden in her pad, azalea,
bougainvillea and jasmine interspersed with huge pots of geranium to bring
splashes of vibrant red to the mix.
    As was usual in Charleston the clouds and cold of the day
before had morphed into a balmy and pleasant afternoon, the sun throwing shards
of light along the garden paths and illuminating the late-blooming