Chase Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

Just stay out of his way. Do what you do best, and let Gabe do the same.”
    Stay out of his way? How was she supposed to do that when he sat sprawled at her table like he owned it? As she watched, Gabe removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses with a small cloth he pulled from his pocket. It was like he’d removed body armor. As he stared myopically at nothing, she could see the flecks of silver in his icy blue eyes.
    Sleet falling on Lake Superior.
    She turned her back on him. “Okay, Elliott, I get it. Take care, and enjoy your Sunday. Okay. Kisses to Claudette. Bye.” The clatter of the handset sounded unnaturally loud in the small cabin.
    “Tattling to the boss already?”
    She stalked away from the phone, picked up the chef’s knife, and chose her next victim, a plump Vidalia onion. The first chop sounded like a falling guillotine. When she looked at Gabe again, his glasses were back where they belonged. “For your information, Elliott called me.”
    “Okay.” His stomach growled audibly.
    Guilt poked her again. No doubt her mother would be horrified at the hospitality she’d shown Gabe thus far. “Would you like to have some breakfast?”
    “Thank you—as long as you’re eating too. Less chance of being poisoned that way.”
    She rolled her eyes at him.
    “What’s on the menu?”
    “Breakfast pizza—a flatbread Mom and I learned to make when we spent some time at a dig in Ethiopia when I was young,” she answered. “It’s one of my favorite comfort foods—” Lorin, you’re babbling. Just shut up.
    But of course he’d picked up on the edge in her voice, and now he was watching her much too closely. “You’ve had a stressful few days, that’s for sure. Being quarantined isn’t an experience you forget.”
    She flicked a glance his way before turning her attention back to her onion. Sounded like there was a bigger story there.
    “Well, now that Wyland’s cleared you, you can dig and run and… fight to your heart’s content.” When he cleared his throat and started asking detailed technical questions about the sauna he’d just used, she knew she’d imagined the huskiness in his voice.
    “It’s a wood/solar hybrid,” she told him. “We converted part of our grid to solar a couple of years ago.” When she walked past him to rinse her hands at the washbowl, she smelled her own shampoo. Somehow, on him, its crisp rosemary-mint scent seemed darker, less civilized.
    He stretched a yard of leg under the table, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. “I was never so glad to see a building in my life.” He shot her a wry look over the rim of the steaming mug. “I was certain you were trying to kill me off with hypothermia.”
    “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind.” She wiped her dripping hands. “But don’t worry. If I wanted you dead, you’d see me coming.”
    Gabe’s hand jerked, sloshing a tiny bit of coffee. “Sorry,” he muttered, catching the spilled liquid with a quick lap of his tongue before it dripped on to the table.
    Lorin’s gaze locked on his mouth, and her sex gave a voracious clench. Oh, hell no. She knew she was hard up, but Gabe Lupinsky? Slick, ambitious, annoying Gabe Lupinsky? No.
    But her traitorous body wasn’t listening to common sense, because rough and ready looked damn good on him. Unlike the corporate Gabe Lupinsky she had no problem ignoring when they were both at work, this Gabe hadn’t shaved, had towel-damp hair, and wore faded jeans that cupped him as faithfully as a lover’s hand. For a desk jockey, he had a pretty great body.
    She assessed the subtle flexing of his forearm muscles as he drank the coffee. He had a pretty great body, period. He must work out, somehow. What did Gabe Lupinsky do when he wasn’t crunching numbers, squinting at a laptop screen, herding cats, and generally making her life miserable?
    Gabe nudged an adjacent chair away from the table with the toe of his boot, indicating that she should sit down. “We need to