Dangerous Read Online Free PDF Page B

They’d love to see you.”
    He turned his attention to me then. “Just scan the item, press the coupon button, then scan the coupon. It will automatically take off the appropriate amount. After that, all you have to do is hit your total button.”
    He was standing directly behind me, watching my every move. I tried not to be self-conscious but failed miserably. I followed his instructions and completed the transaction. When Mrs. Foster left the store, there were no other customers.
    Stone crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, grinning at me, his black pullover shirt contrasting with his light blue eyes. “I’m awesome sauce, aren’t I?”
    “Because you know how to enter a coupon?” I asked, slightly annoyed that his conceitedness was showing again.
    “Because you, Dara Golding, find me irresistible.”
    I stared at him, dumbfounded.
    “Admit it. You do.” His angular jawline softened as he grinned.
    “I’ll admit no such thing, you pompous rakehell.”
    “Rakehell? Ouch. Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. You had to dig deep in your vocabulary for that one, didn’t you?”
    “Not as deep as you might think. For some reason, I’ve had a lot of words swirling in my head today, like rogue, cad, asshat…you get the picture.”
    “You wound me.” He slapped his palm against his muscular chest as if I had shot him with my words.
    “Yeah, well, if I’m lucky, you’ll crawl in a corner and die.”
    He laughed, a genuinely carefree laugh that almost made me want to smile. Almost.
    “If I did that, you’d have nothing to look forward to.” He pushed himself off the counter and walked away.
    My mind worked furiously to form a comeback, one that would really kick him in the seat of his pants, but it came up empty. What scared me the most was that he was right. Well, not that I would have nothing to look forward to, but that I did look forward to seeing him. I hadn’t really dated much. Chance and I had been together for a very long time, so I had grown comfortable around him. Stone was nothing like Chance. Chance was the all-American guy, a phenomenal athlete, the sweet, polite date that every girl’s parents would love. Stone was much darker and more mysterious, aloof, and maybe a little unpredictable. He seemed to be in an unusually good mood at the moment. I had a feeling that he would be much more difficult to get to know. And if I did get to know him, would I like him or would he prove to be an arrogant jerk?
    I probably wouldn’t get the answer to my question anytime soon. Stone avoided me for the rest of my shift. I felt awkward around him, but I tried to focus on the fact that I needed to save money for a car.
    I called Granny after work, and she assured me that she didn’t need the car and encouraged me to meet up with Crimson and Scarlet. We met at Awesome Sauce, a local restaurant that was a favorite of the younger crowd.
    We piled into a booth and ordered drinks and a large order of nachos. Crimson and Scarlet, whose mother named them after shades of her favorite color, sat across from me. They had an exotic look with their olive skin, long hair in a rich, chestnut color, and dark brown eyes. They were true identical twins, and the only way most people could tell them apart was by the tiny scar above Scarlet’s right eyebrow. The rest was word association. Scarlet had the scar. It was kind of lame, but it worked. Well, except for the occasional bonehead that couldn’t seem to grasp the concept.
    Crimson and Scarlet were a year older than me. They had graduated from the cosmetology program at our school this past year, and they planned to open their own shop on Quail Mountain. I had known them my whole life, and I was with them the day that Scarlet had furiously pedaled her pink princess bicycle into an overgrown holly bush and had to go to the emergency room to get three stitches for the small gash above her eye. She had been six years old and had screamed so wretchedly