Asking For Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

case. She didn’t bother with removing the remaining streaks of makeup
from her face, brushing her teeth or combing her hair. Instead, she fell
straight into bed. Lucy climbed in beside her and she cuddled the dog close to
her. As she drifted off, Natalie remembered she hadn’t fed her canine companion
yet, but the tug of sleep was too strong, and Lucy wasn’t complaining. She fell
into a dark void, hoping no nightmares would follow.
     
    Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Natalie woke
abruptly. She couldn’t remember what images, if any, had haunted her dreams,
but remnants of the fear clung to her, coating her body in a film of cloying
sweat. She left the comfort of the luxuriously soft mattress to seek a shower.
Only after she’d washed thoroughly, in water hot enough to turn her skin red,
did she feel refreshed.
    Upon reentering the bedroom, a glance at the clock on her
cell phone revealed she wouldn’t need to be up and ready for the office for
several hours yet. Hoping she could somehow return to sleep, despite feeling
too awake and on edge to ever rest again, she chose a pair of cotton pajamas
instead of dressing in street clothes. Natalie eyed herself ruefully in the
full-length mirror in the closet. In the oversized maroon PJs, she was anything
but sexy. If Orion happened to see her like this, lust for her wouldn’t drive him
mad by any stretch of the imagination.
    “C’mon, girl,” she said to Lucy. The dog fell in step beside
her as Natalie took time to retrieve her water dish from the dog’s items before
walking out of the bedroom. In the hallway, she made a conscious effort to
close her door quietly and pad on bare feet across the black wooden floor. She
didn’t want to wake Orion, but for more than reasons of consideration. It just
wasn’t in her to face him right now. Her own behavior embarrassed her. How
could she have been so weak? Even if she’d had a relationship with Orion beyond
the office, her total dependence on him last night would have been
embarrassing. As it stood, she had acted very inappropriately and had made
herself way too vulnerable to the man to feel comfortable in his presence right
then. Honestly, she had no idea how she was going to face him in the morning.
It wasn’t as though she could pretend none of it had ever happened.
    For one thing, she decided as she entered the kitchen and
searched for the lights, she would be moving herself and Lucy to a hotel today.
Last night, his reasoning had been sound, when her brain had been so numb. In
the cold light of early morning, she couldn’t justify staying with him. Of
course it made sense not to return to her home until those men were locked up
in jail, but there wasn’t a viable reason she couldn’t go to a hotel or
short-term rental.
    Once she found the lights, Natalie spent a few minutes
orienting herself with the gourmet kitchen. It wasn’t like her to take over
someone else’s space, but Lucy needed food, and the industrial appliances
beckoned. One of her passions was cooking, and any chef would feel at home with
the layout of Orion’s kitchen. A quick inventory of his fridge and freezer
revealed Lucy would be eating ultra-gourmet this morning. “Not your usual lean
ground beef, yogurt, rice and peas today, Lucy,” she said as she took a thick
steak from the freezer. “Don’t get used to this.”
    While the steak defrosted, Natalie gathered a few crucial
ingredients to make Lucy’s breakfast. As soon as the steak was soft, she cut it
up, combined the other ingredients and popped it all back into the microwave.
Only then did she realize her own stomach was rumbling.
    Natalie was in the middle of scrambling eggs with Monterey
Jack when Orion appeared in the kitchen. She turned around for the salt and
nearly jumped out of her skin. “How do you do that?” she asked with a touch of
indignation.
    “Do what?” He took a seat at the breakfast bar.
    “Sneak up on people. You’re so quiet, we should put a