Seduced by a Dangerous Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

color.
    Imported stuff, and expensive as hell. But… I’d had a narrow escape, I needed some kind of treat, and anyway the display of crisp golden apples was obscenely appealing.
    I chose four juicy apples and tried to pretend that the diaphanous plastic bag didn’t smell stronger than the fruit. I turned to put the full bag into the cart, and that was when I saw him, not twenty feet away.
    It was like some weird déjà vu that took me back to the first time I’d seen Corbin. I stood there blinking like that would bring him into sharper focus: a tall man, broad of shoulder, wearing a long coat and a cowboy hat jammed low over his face.
    I knew it wasn’t Corbin. There were things that didn’t mesh. Like the wedding band on the hand that reached for a bag of carrots. But that desperate, fucked-up part of my brain believed it anyway. Corbin was back, and he had gotten married to someone else.
    And damn if the guy didn’t look like him from the back. It was just a silhouette and an outfit, though maybe the man wasn’t quite as big as Corbin.
    The man turned, head still down. His open coat revealed blue flannel tucked messily into tight jeans. Unlike Corbin’s expensive bought-in-an-upscale-department-store flannel, this guy’s clothing was cheap, made for work and easily replaced. He was probably a lumberjack or a rancher, had likely earned those muscles through long hours of backbreaking labor.
    But it didn’t matter. Flannel. Cowboy hat. The size of him. My racing heartbeat said he might as well have been Corbin.
    He looked up. His jaw wasn’t as broad as Corbin’s, and he had a smaller nose, too. His Adam’s apple was more prominent. But his body…
    The man stared right at me, likely sensing the laser intensity of my stare. His eyes were blue. Boring blue. Nothing wrong with them, but they weren’t electric. They didn’t glow. They didn’t flash with energy and life.
    The man tilted his head slightly, a confused smile coming to lips not nearly as full as the lips I’d been dreaming about. When he smiled, the last of the spell was broken, and I struggled to catch my breath.
    I walked out of the store, got in my car, and drove home in an oblivious daze.  
    I found myself curling up on my bed without bothering to drag back the blankets. I turned away from the afternoon sun streaming in through the windows.
    When I’d decided the night before that I wasn’t going to return to the cabin, I had meant it. Even though I’d broken that promise before, the previous times I’d known I wasn’t finished.
    And I had never seriously considered going to the gorgeous mountain house where Corbin and I had spent so many happy hours together. While it was fully wired with security, due to the leaks it wasn’t completely off the radar like the secret cabin was. The luxury mountain house was a place where Corbin’s private life and his assassin life crossed, and I had been told to stay away.  
    But if Corbin was back and avoiding me, that was where I’d find him.
    I needed to talk to him. To demand an explanation. He had promised never to play games with me, and what was this if not a game?  
    He didn’t want to be with me, fine. Who could blame him? I’d confessed my love to him twice, both times during sex. Not exactly a sign of emotional maturity. And then I’d taken it back the first time. And the second time…  
    “Oh, God,” I whispered, awash in humiliation again. I had bawled like a baby. During sex. Never mind that there were tons of extenuating circumstances. And all Corbin had said was, “Thank you.”
    I balled my fists. Of course he was avoiding me. I had started our “relationship” by asking him about one-night stands. Fun and easy, right? And then somewhere along the way, I had changed my mind.  
    Corbin was a gentleman, notwithstanding all the spanking and, somehow, despite the assassin thing. He wasn’t going to respond to my declaration with, “Flattered, but not feeling you, babe.”