Fiery Read Online Free PDF Page A

to clean up his neck. When she finished, unsnapped the cape and motioned for him to get up, Ryan turned the chair and looked at her. He watched while she swept up his hair and the hair she’d dropped earlier. His gaze moved warm and liquid through her veins until her entire body was a pool of warm arousal, just as she’d felt washing his hair. And when he’d kissed her.
    She’d cut his hair. He’d looked at her. What about any of that was arousing?
    “It wasn’t the kiss, was it, Carmen?”
    Her name on his lips, spoken with the slow pace of Whispering Cove, took her desire up a notch. She wanted to explain, to tell him how much he’d hurt her, but she didn’t want him to know the kind of power he had over her. Ryan Alden was a man who loved power and wouldn’t hesitate to use it to win.
    “I think you misunderstood what I meant about non-natives. I was talking about plants.”
    She shrugged. He may have meant plants, but he wouldn’t be able to deny he’d thought the theory applied to people—her—as well.
    “You can’t ignore me forever. Not if you want any say on how your design is executed. Or if you want the 3-D figures to look right.”
    She headed toward the door to unlock it for him, not caring about payment. She only cared about getting distance from her awakening desires.
    He rested his hand on hers over the door and looked down to meet her gaze. Reading him was impossible, other than to know that whatever he felt or thought was intense and heated. Then she remembered the length of his erection that had pressed against the zipper of his pants and her cheeks heated more than his stare.
    “Carmen. Let me buy you dinner. We can talk about the gazebo project.”
    The words about to come out of her mouth were unwise, quite possibly the most unwise thing she’d ever said, but she took the leap. “I don’t want people to know I’m involved with that.”
    “People are going to know.”
    “Eventually.” With as much thought and effort as she’d put into the design, she wanted to see it executed. She wanted to help even if that meant working with Ryan and playing into Byron’s matchmaking hands. “If we’re going to keep the design a secret, like the council wants, we shouldn’t be discussing it in public.”
    Ryan locked his gaze with hers, brushed the tips of his fingers across her knuckles, and spoke quietly. “Are you inviting me to your place, Carmen?”
    Borrowing a page from her sister’s book of bravery, Carmen nodded. She could allow Ryan in without risking too much. The only man who’d ever been in her apartment had been Josh, but he didn’t really count because he was her brother-in-law and he’d been picking up his daughter.
    There was nothing so innocent when it came to Ryan and the way he affected her. “Yes. I’m asking you to come to my place.”
    “I’ll grab a pizza and meet you there.”

Chapter Four
    Ryan had considered kissing her in the salon. Hell, she’d had him on the verge of grabbing her and pulling her into his lap from the moment she slipped her fingers into his hair at the wash sink. Then she invited him to her place.
    He could have invited her to his, but he preferred more privacy than his apartment above the garage of his parents’ home offered. And until he knew why he was drawn to her, why he couldn’t dislodge the memory of her curves against him, and what he wanted to do about it, if anything, he wasn’t in the mood to share her.
    She’d avoided him without even having met his family. Meeting them wouldn’t likely endear her to him. He didn’t need their scrutiny.
    With a warm pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, Ryan toed off his dirty boots and set them against the wall. Using his foot, he rapped twice on the metal door and called, “It’s Ryan.”
    Carmen answered his knock quickly, which offered a change of pace from standing on her stoop like an ass. She scanned him quickly, frowning when she got to his feet. “What’s