Secrets and Seductions Read Online Free PDF

arched back, large hands massaging the base of his spine.
    Leah swallowed as heated awareness tingled through her body. She tugged at the hem of her T-shirt, suddenly out of her depth. She didn’t want to feel this. Or… Her gaze slid lower. Stop it!
    “Morning to you too, sweetheart. I parked it out back.”
    “You had no right. I thought you were gone. Why aren’t you? And don’t you sweetheart me. This is my grove, my house, my…”
    His smile slipped. “Not quite.”
    Leah’s hands curled as she wrestled to rein in her temper. “Damn you, Mac Grainger. You storm in here, take over. You may hold the debt, but this is my olive grove. I work here.”
    “And I can’t?”
    “That’s right.”
    He shrugged, his attention abandoning her for a moment as he viewed the grove. He dragged a hand through his hair, an action he did often when he seemed to be considering his reply. It was also an action that highlighted his six-pack torso.
    Stop. Stop . Leah found herself focusing on a tiny bead of sweat as it inched down his chest . Please stop!
    Oh, this was bad. She was bad.
    “Why not? You look like you need the help. This is too much work for one woman.”
    Yeah, why not?
    Leah shook her head. What was wrong with her? Twenty-four hours, and she was beginning to agree with him.
    “From what I understand,” Mac said, “it’s only going to get busier. You need extra help.”
    “I have a crew coming soon, so I don’t need you.” She also didn’t need to be seduced by another Grainger’s good looks and charm. His help came with far too high a price.
    However, she could protest all she liked that it was because she wanted to protect Charlee, but truth was, she desperately needed to protect her heart. “Oh…you…you… Go away, Mac.” She waved her hand at him, as if, like a magician waving a wand, she could simply make him disappear. Trouble was, it didn’t work. “Just go. This is my home. I can’t work with you here, hovering, watching, waiting for me to make a mistake.”
    “Tough. I’m not going anywhere. So get used to it.”
    Between Mac’s stubborn refusal to back down and the constant uncertainty of whether she’d be able to keep the roof over their heads, Leah couldn’t take any more. And what about her secrets? They had to be kept, for Charlee’s sake.
    Everything crowded in on her brain, overwhelming her. Too many things to do, too many bills, and all the time Mac checking up on her, his powerful presence a threat not just to her security, but to the part of her she had locked away.
    She sank to her knees, dropped her head to her chest and just sat there. Then the tears launched.
    Tears for everything.
    For death. For the loss of hope and love, and what could have been. Dreams she had thought would come true. For loving a man who had failed her too many times to count.
    And for how hard it had been.
    She tugged her scarf from her head, and a tumble of curls fell across her eyes, mixing hair with tears.
    Lost in misery, she barely noticed the touch of warm hands on her shoulders, drawing her from the bleakness.
    “Leah?” Mac pulled her to her feet. Not one iota of humor shone in his dark eyes, but something strangely comforting that wrenched at the tenuous grip she had on her emotions. Suddenly, it became easier to simply give in to the strong arms holding her as warm fingers, their tips surprisingly roughened, threaded through her curls, cupping her head so that she snuggled into the curve of his shoulder.
    Leah inhaled the hint of his masculine scent manipulating her olfactory senses, offering a hint of a life so different from the musky aroma she knew of earth and plants.
    Then his lips slanted across hers in the barest of kisses, caressing the side of her cheek. Her eyes shuttered, fingertips trailing across his bare chest, sensitive to the race of his heartbeat, lost to a world of sensations she hadn’t felt for…
    “No!” What the hell was she thinking? Doing? Leah stiffened her