All I Want is You (Hearts on Fire Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

  
    “Make yourself at home.  I’ll be right back,” Jake says.
    The room is huge, much bigger than Ellie’s cramped one-bedroom apartment, and twice the height.  
    Unlike Ellie’s, this apartment faces Central Park.  An entire wall of floor-to-ceiling glass reveals the view— Upper East Side lights flicker in the distance.  
    Ellie feels like she stepped into another world, one she didn’t think was possible in her building.
    “I found a bandage,” Jake calls from a back hallway.  His voice holds surprise.  
    Ellie turns from the windows.  As she glances around the rest of the room, a picture— the lone personal touch in the otherwise newly renovated space— catches her attention.  She walks toward the end table to get a better look.  There are four young boys at the beach, the ocean in waves behind them.  One of them is clearly Jake, maybe ten years old.  
    On the other side of the room, Jake walks in.  His shirt is loose, half the buttons undone.  His chest is exposed, and somehow even more impressive than Ellie first thought.  Dark, firm, and defined.  
    She turns her full attention to him now as he continues to undo the remaining buttons. One-by-one, the ripples of his abs appear.   This man’s body is insane.
    The pace of Ellie’s breathing increases.  She walks to him and places her hands on his chest, sliding up, over his shoulders, rolling his shirt off of his arms, into ruins on the floor.  “Let’s clean you up.”  
    He hands her the bandage and turns around.
    “We’ll need more than a bandage,” Ellie says.  “Do you have a towel? … Wet, please,” she smirks.
    Jake glances over his shoulder at her, a casual smile crosses his face.  He walks into the kitchen, rummages through several drawers, and pulls two beers from the fridge and returns.  “Thirsty?”  He hands a towel to her.
    Ellie nods.  She sits at a bar stool and turns him to the side.  She gently cleans the small wound.  “So, Mr. Harlow… tell me something about yourself.”  
    Jake pulls the tops off of the beers, sets hers down on the counter and takes a long drink.  “What would you like to know?”
    Ellie pauses for a moment.  She realizes she knows next to nothing about him.  “What about your family?”
    “There’s not much to tell,” he says.
    “Siblings?”
    “Nope.”
    Ellie senses the tension in his voice, flashes a quick glance back at the picture, and decides to keep on.  “So, you didn’t just drop out of the sky, what about parents?”  She dabs the towel on his back.
    Jake hesitates for a moment.  “It’s a long story,” he says.
    “I’ve got time,” she smirks.
    “Not right now,” his face tightens.
    “Do they live around—?”
    “They’re both dead.”  Jake picks up his beer, drinks the rest of it down and brings the empty bottle to the counter with a thud.  A grave look washes over his face.
    “Oh, Jake, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”  Ellie blushes.
    “Yeah, well,” his expression goes blank.  “It’s nothing anyway.  It was a long time ago….”  He walks to the fridge.  “Another?”
    She shakes her head side-to-side and picks her beer up from the counter.  “Sorry, Jake,” she says in a soft voice.  Her stomach rumbles inside, but she takes a drink anyway.
    Jake walks back over and stands in front of her.  His exposed upper body this close makes her forget what just happened.  Even the dark oval birthmark above his left nipple is perfect, like it was painted on, delicately finishing the canvas, just right.
    She rips the package open, gestures for him to turn around.  She presses the ends of the bandage against his warm skin.  The soft sensation makes her whole body plead for more.  
    She studies the contour of his muscles, massages them up and down his lean back with her hands.  She closes her eyes, her mind racing toward sex each time she looks at him now.  She imagines lying together with him in bed... what it would—what it