Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t.
    “Well?”
    He looked up. She’d reached across the cab and flung open the passenger door. “You up for this or not?”
    Attitude, and in spades.
    He considered turning around and going back into the house, but that was probably what she wanted.
    What she expected.
    She was impudent, and in-your-face rude.
    But it was amusing, especially after the tension of last night.
    She stood up to him, and women never did. They were invariably eager to please, almost pathetically so.
    “Make up your mind, signore . Are you getting in, or have you changed your mind about what I’m sure is your considerable expertise?”
    Changing my mind would probably be smart, he thought…
    And he got into the truck.
    “Fortunately for you,” he said, “I have not.”
    She laughed.
    He slammed the door behind him, she turned the key, hit the gas and the truck practically stood on its rear wheels as it shot down the mile-long gravel driveway to the road.
    * * *
    She drove fast enough to make the scenery blur, and gave no ground for the endless bumps and dips in the gravel. She swerved once, but that was to avoid a coyote that shot out ahead of them.
    When they reached the sooth-surfaced main road, it was that American phrase—pedal to the metal.
    Luca would have been surprised at anything less.
    He took his Ray-Bans from his inside jacket pocket, slipped them on and glanced at her.
    Everything about her said that she didn’t believe in taking the easy way. The safe way. She was impetuous, outspoken, arrogant, hot-tempered…
    And gorgeous.
    And there it was again, that whisper in the back of his brain that said they’d met before.
    He thought about asking her if they had. No. He wouldn’t do that. Even though he’d mean it, the line was so old it was a bad joke.
    Besides, he had an excellent memory. You had to have a good memory when you spent your time talking numbers with clients.
    If they’d met, it would come to him.
    For now, he’d concentrate on watching her. The way her one hand rested on the steering wheel and the other lay in her lap. The proud profile. The determined set of her jaw. He couldn’t see her eyes—she’d slipped on a pair of oversized dark glasses—but he could admire her mouth, the fullness of it, the slight overbite.
    She was stunning. And interesting. An enigma. So much temperament, such disdain for what most people would call simple civility.
    She was, in a word, a puzzle, and he’d always been fascinated by puzzles.
    Dammit.
    Luca folded his arms and shifted his long legs under the dashboard.
    Be honest, man.
    What she was, was a woman he wanted to take to bed.
    He’d only known her for, what, fifteen minutes? Still, he was fantasizing about having sex with her. He wanted her beneath him, his hands cupping her ass, her mouth lifted to his, her legs wrapped around his hips, all that impudence giving way to submission as he took her.
    One thing he’d learned early in life was that it didn’t take long to know you wanted a woman. Pheromones, hormones, whatever, you saw the right woman and the message went from your brain straight to your balls.
    Luca frowned.
    Still, what was with him and this fixation on a stranger? He came across beautiful women all the time and he often considered what they’d be like in bed—he was a man, after all—but this was a little overdone.
    Or maybe not.
    He sat back, looked straight ahead and thought about his life these last few months.
    Sex was probably what he needed to make a full return to sanity
    Ever since his mother’s death, he’d been immersed in a quagmire of ugly secrets and even uglier realities.
    For a long time, he and Matteo had suspected that their father was not a government spy. That he led some sort of secret life in the United States. And after looking through a box of old documents when they’d had to make some necessary repairs to the house they’d grown up in, they’d come to the conclusion that their parents’ marriage might not