Raven on the Wing Read Online Free PDF

Saturday, she shouldn’t be working.
    Three hours ago he had driven his rented car to the apartment she was supposed to be living in. The manager had been shocked by the very idea; the tenants were back east, she’d said, but there was no sublet, no helpful friend watching the place for them. Raven Anderson? She’d never heard of her.
    Josh lit a cigarette, not, by far, the first of the day, and stared broodingly at the phone. Well, hell, he hadn’t imagined it. He remembered ripe curves and warm lips far too clearly for it to have been a dream or a drunken delusion—and he wasn’t given to imagining things.
    Nor had his body forgotten. He still felt that new, strangely vivid sensitivity, the feeling that everything inside him was focused intensely on her. Restlessness and frustration were making him jittery, uncomfortable—and he had never been a man to let his emotions manifest themselves physically. But these emotions were growing more powerful by the moment, even without the sight or touch of her to feed the hunger; his mind was filled with vivid images that had haunted him since he had first seen her.
    Images of beautiful violet eyes and gleaming black hair, of tender lips curved in amusement and faintly swollen from his passion. Images of full breasts lovingly restrained by a blue dress and lending a seductive shape to a bulky sweater. Images of curved hips and long legs …
    He lifted his gaze to look around the penthouse suite, barely taking notice; he had been in too many far too similar suites for the architecture or decor to make any impression on him.
    The desk where he sat was near wide, floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of one wall. The floor was sunken, an off-white pit grouping allowing seating space for a small convention and a fireplace offering more than electric or gas heat. A far-from-compact bar stood in one corner, and two closed doors hinted that there were at least that many bedrooms and quite likely more.
    In short, it was a very large suite.
    From one of the bedrooms stepped a man whom most people would cross the street to avoid. It wasn’t only that he was several inches over six feet and tended to fill doorways; itwasn’t even that a wicked scar twisted down his lean cheek. What it was about the man that frightened even the stouthearted was a palpable aura of leashed power and an atmosphere of cold menace.
    He moved like a big cat as he came into the room, as if he walked on dried leaves and wished to be silent. And he would have been silent even with dried leaves underfoot. The immaculate business suit he wore did absolutely nothing to conceal the danger of him, nor did the calm, almost bland expression on his rugged face or the serene gray eyes.
    Josh focused on the man. “Zach,” he said slowly, “I’ve got a job for you.”
    His security chief, sometimes bodyguard, and friend of fifteen years eased his considerable bulk into a chair by the desk. “We aren’t going on?” he asked equably.
    “No. I’ve canceled the remainder of the trip.”
    “Then put me to work.” The big man’s voice was curiously soft.
    Having made up his mind, Josh began speakingrapidly, concisely. “I want you to do a background check on a woman named Raven Anderson. Waist-length black hair, violet eyes, tall, striking. Late twenties, I’d say. Says she’s from back east somewhere.” He described her car and rattled off the license plate, then gave the address of the apartment and phone number. “The manager claims the apartment is empty, not sublet, but Raven knew where everything was in the kitchen.”
    Zach had not made notes, but he wouldn’t forget; he possessed a phenomenal memory. He didn’t ask Josh why he wanted the background, nor did he think for a moment that it was because of personal interest. His friend and employer’s aversion to brunettes was well known, and had stopped being a joke years ago.
    “Pull some of the team in if you need to,” Josh was saying as he