Jaci Burton Read Online Free PDF Page B

inched farther to the right. “Tel
    me where you’ve been for the past ten years.”
    He went silent. When he spoke again, his breath brushed
    against her cheek. “I was in prison for a while for theft. Then I
    just rode freelance here and there, ended up in Chicago.”
    She found it hard to breathe with him standing so close to
    her. But at least he’d been honest. “In prison?”
    “Yeah.”
    “For how long?”
    “Three years.”
    “How long ago was that?”
    “Seven years ago.”
    “Not since then?”
    “No.”
    She inhaled, blew it out, then stopped breathing when he
    wound his arms around her waist. “Does that bother you?”
    “Honestly? I don’t know.” She thought about it. Just because
    he did time in jail didn’t mean he was a bad person now.
    People made mistakes. Some people learned from them.
    She’d seen plenty of that.
    He laughed, and took a step back. “Go away, Little Red
    Riding Hood.”
    “What?”
    She heard the creak of the bedsprings.
    “You can’t handle the Big Bad Wolf.”
    Affronted, she moved forward, her knee making contact
    with the mattress. “Now just a minute. I didn’t say that.”
    “You didn’t have to say a word. You’re a scared little rabbit.”
    Dammit. “I am not.”

    “Aren’t you?”
    He sounded so smug. “No, I’m not. I just don’t have
    indiscriminate sex with strangers.”
    He laughed, the sound as dark as the room they were in.
    “Sorry. I left my resume in my other bike.”
    What an asshole. She should leave, march downstairs and .
    . .
    And what? “Do you often bul y women into having sex with
    you?”
    “I’ve never had to beg a woman to have sex with me, Ava.”
    She believed that. Women probably fought each other for
    the right to get in bed with him. And why not? He was
    gorgeous, oozed sexuality. So what the hel was wrong with
    her? She wasn’t a virgin. God knows the man got her juices
    flowing.
    “If you have to think that hard about it, you should go. I
    promise not to chase you.”
    “What if I wanted you to?”
    “Wanted me to what? Chase you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t chase women. I like them to be wil ing.”
    She blew out a breath. He had a point.
    “Ava.”
    “Yes.”
    “What’s wrong with letting go and just enjoying yourself?”
    She didn’t have an answer to that because she rarely did it.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Want me to show you what it’s like?”
    He was chal enging her, daring her to let go. Could she?

    Her life was al planned out, so orderly, so control ed. This
    moment represented everything that wasn’t her. And
    everything that was Rick. He didn’t appear to be a threat to
    her, at least not that she could discern. Then again, what did
    she real y know about him?
    What had she real y known about any of the guys she’d had
    sex with in her lifetime?
    Not much other than what they’d told her. She hadn’t known
    them any better than she knew Rick. And she was way more
    turned on by him than she’d ever been by them. Just standing
    in this dark bedroom with him, listening to him talk to her, had
    her wet, her nipples puckering and begging to be touched,
    licked, sucked.
    The thril of the forbidden, she supposed. Was that the lure
    that pul ed Lacey in? The bad boy in leather offering the apple
    in the garden? Tempting, oh so tempting.
    Then again, what was so wrong about going a little wild?
    She was certainly overdue for it.
    She sat on the bed. And suddenly, he was right there, his
    chest against her back.
    And when he leaned in and pressed his lips to the side of
    her neck, she shivered at the contact, tilted her head back,
    and let him have access. She turned and he pul ed her against
    him, her breasts pil owed against his chest.
    She laid her hands on his arms and felt the corded strength
    of his biceps flexing, and knew she wanted him naked,
    wanted to explore his body with her hands and her mouth.
    She wanted something she’d never had before.
    The chance to live a little bit on the