Friends and Lovers Trilogy 03 - Seduced Read Online Free PDF

desk.
    She sighed as she shrugged out of the rain slicker. “That’s better.”
    For her maybe. Personally, his temperature just shot to one-fifty. Joe palmed his forehead while gathering his wits. She’d gone from hostile, to weepy, to barely coherent. Asking her to make sense just now was probably futile, but he had to try. “Sofia. Sweetheart. Where are your clothes?”
    “I told you. Ruined.” Her speech was halted, softer, definitely slurred. “I know it was fake, but … couldn’t stand it. Threw them out.”
    “Knew what was fake?”
    “The blood.”
    A muscle jumped under his right eye. “There was blood on your clothes?”
    “Fake blood.”
    Yeah. And she also thought the Beretta was a prop.
    “And on my legs. But … ” Heavy sigh. “I washed it off.”
    He glanced at her legs then. All two-hundred miles of them. Her knees and shins were covered with scrapes and welts.
Damn
. He squatted down and inspected the superficial wounds. “What happened?”
    She shrugged. “Don’t remember.”
    The running theme of the night. His mind exploded with a dozen ugly scenarios. Rape. Assault. Attempted murder.
Murder
. Something traumatic. Something she’d blocked out. Worried that she’d suffered other injuries, he examined her thighs, stomach, arms, back …
    “Having fun?”
    But there was no humor or real outrage in her words. Just resignation. Christ. He sank down beside her on the bed, framed her face in his hands. “Try to focus. Do you hurt anywhere?”
    “Only when I try to focus.”
    He registered the sad quirk of that sexy mouth, the confusion in her heavy-lidded eyes. “All right. Let it go. We’ll talk tomorrow when you’re sober.” He dropped his hands, averted his gaze. “I should get you some water and aspirin. Salve for those scrapes.” And some clothes. The only reason he wasn’t turned on just now was because he’d fixated on the gun and blood. On the fact that someone may have harmed or threatened her. On the possibility that she’d maimed or killed in self-defense.
    She leaned forward and grazed her fingers over his goatee, his mouth. “You’re sexy when you’re intense.” She studied him with a mocking pout. “Which is most of the time.”
    “Mmm.” He couldn’t comment. Wouldn’t comment. Had to be the liquor talking.
    She smoothed his hair out of his face, her soft fingers caressing his forehead and cheeks. His skin burned and his cock stirred. She leaned closer and his heart slammed against his chest. “Why do you have to be such an arrogant prick?”
    He laughed at that. “For the same reason, I imagine, that you’re a consistent pain in the ass. Comes naturally.”
    She smiled, warm and fuzzy, at
him
, Christ almighty, and moistened her lips. “You ruined me for other men, Joseph Bogart. I’ll never forgive you.”
    With that bit of good news/bad news, his fondest obsession slumped forward and passed out in his arms, shooting any hope of a simple, peaceful life to hell.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Rainbow Ridge, Vermont
    R udy Gallow’s hopes for a relaxing, joyous reunion with friends and lovers blew sky-high when the electricity went off. And on. And off. For the third time that week.
    “That settles it.” He wiped his hands on a dishtowel, groped for his cordless phone and speed dialed his best friend while making his way to the utility room.
    She picked up on the second ring. “Four days and counting! Oh, Rudy, I can’t tell you how excited …”
    “I need to reschedule.”
    “What do you mean
reschedule
? You’re not serious. Please, tell me you’re not serious!”
    He winced as Afia Leeds babbled into the phone, her normally mellow voice climbing to an ear-piercing level. His friend was definitely stressed. He knew the feeling. He needed a Valium, or four. He’d settle for a glass of wine, that’s if Casper the meddlesome ghost hadn’t hidden his bottle of cabernet. Household items had been disappearing and reappearing in the oddest places for three