Out of Control Read Online Free PDF Page A

deep-sea fishing expedition if he’d ever heard one. I don’t have a wife. Want to come for a swim in my pool? Naked? With your legs around my waist?

    Ken clenched his teeth, locking in all the things he shouldn’t say, all the things that would reveal just how pathetically inexperienced he was at this kind of social and sexual game.

    It was at times like this that he really, truly missed Adele—not because he still loved her. No, he was finally done with that. What he missed was belonging to her. They hadn’t been married, but they might as well have been. On again and off again, but mostly on again, from senior year in high school until just over a year ago—he wasn’t counting months any longer—they’d been a couple. He, at least, had been faithful for all those years—almost ten of them. The relationship had been long distance and way, way less than perfect, but he still missed the relief that came with not having to play this will-she-won’t-she, if-I-say-this-then-maybe-she-will game with every beautiful stranger whose tire he changed.

    He took a long drink of the cold pop before he answered her. “I’m not married.”

    It came out matter-of-fact. Casual. No big deal—certainly not as if inside he was running around and crashing full speed into walls in his blind hope that this good-looking woman, whose name he didn’t even know, would sleep with him tonight. She was interested. She was definitely interested.

    “Oh,” she said, equally casually. And then, obviously casting her fishing rod again, she asked, “You have a lot of vegetables in your bags . . . Do you live alone? I mean, stereotypical bachelors live on tacos and pizza, but I suppose that’s just the stereotype . . .”

    “You caught me on a good day,” he told her. Wanna go have sex? No, no, no shit-for-brains. Ask her her name. Tell her yours. He cleared his throat. “I’m Ken Karmody, by the way. And yes, I live alone. Completely. Alone.”

    Oh, Jesus. Not quite as casual as before.

    She took off her sunglasses. X-Men’s Cyclops, with his laserbeam gaze, had nothing on this chick. Those eyes were incredible. Forget about her underwear, forget about sex, all he wanted to do was stare into her eyes for the rest of his life.

    “You are so fucking pretty.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “Whoa,” he said. “Excuse me. Wow, I’m sorry. I spend most of my time with a bunch of guys who—” A siren sounded, a few blocks over. “Great. Here comes the language police, to lock me up.”

    She was laughing, thank God. “I’m Savannah.”

    “Savannah. That’s um . . . very pretty. It suits you. You got a last name, or are you like Cher? One name says it all.”

    It was a lame joke, but she laughed again, and he teetered, on the verge of falling desperately in love. Just like that.

    Ken knew he was prone to losing his heart to the girl behind the cash register at McDonald’s before he even got his super-sized fries, but this was even more ridiculous than usual. Savannah had said she was in town for only a few days. If there was going to be something between them, it was going to end almost before it began. And as far as getting a strenuous workout, his heart was not the primary organ he wanted to exercise here.

    “Savannah von Hopf,” she told him. She held out her hand, but pulled it back, wrinkling her nose at the grease that was on her fingers.

    Ken held out his own hand, showing her there was no way she could get him dirtier than he already was. “Savannah von Hopf—that’s a mouthful.”

    She smiled again as she put her hand in his. He tried to keep breathing, tried to keep his heart from stopping at the warmth of the contact.

    But her fingers were long and slender, her palms soft. He held onto her longer than he should have, turning her palm up and running his thumb across it. “So you dig ditches for a living, huh?”

    “No. I’m . . . an appellate attorney.” Her eyes