Shock Waves Read Online Free PDF

Brenna.
    Swallowing hard, she looked down at the chiseled planes of Ethan Carrington’s impossibly handsome face, and some place deep inside slowly, steadily started to bleed.
    Time turned backward, returning her to an eerily quiet spring morning, when she and her cousin had stood side by side, with a warm breeze feathering between them. Leanne’s hands had been as cold as ice, her eyes rimmed with red.
    For Brenna, there’d been only numbness.
    Saying goodbye to her grandmother had been the hardest moment of her life.
    Knowing it was her fault had destroyed her.
    She’d tried. She’d tried so hard. She’d only wanted to help, to stop the darkness. Instead, she’d invited it into her home. For as long as she lived, she’d never forget the flash of horror, the chilling instant of awareness. The blind run through the darkness. The broken window.
    The smear of blood on the doorstep—
    No. She wouldn’t go back there. Not ever, ever again. Refusing to dwell, she focused on the man in her lap. He’d looked invincible standing against the night, with the James River ambling along behind him. She’d seen him on television before, countless times, and he’d always been imposing. But nothing had prepared her for the intensity of his presence, even something as simple as his walk. The take-no-prisoners voice. The way those penetrating green eyes had locked on to her and never let go.
    “Why didn’t you listen to me?” she whispered. He’d fought her, Brenna, the woman who’d come to help, but not the men who’d knocked him unconscious. He’d just stood there with a faint, knowing smile curving his lips, as though the limousine was the most cherished sight in the world.
    Another moan, this one deeper, stronger. He shifted in her lap, and through the darkness, one of his hands settled against her inner thigh. The tingle of awareness was immediate. Warmth penetrated denim and sank beneath her flesh, trickled deep. Instinct demanded that she pull away from him, his touch, but her body refused to obey.
    So long. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself physical human contact, other than her cousin Leanne and a few co-workers. To have a man touch her, even though he didn’t know what he was doing or who she was, to feel his fingers inch along her thigh, jammed the breath in her throat.
    “Ethan.” She tried for nonchalance, but his name rasped against the emotion in her throat.
    “Mmm.” His big hand kept moving. Each finger seared into her, left a lasting imprint. His thumb rubbed along her hip bone, another finger stretched along her stomach, his pinkie skimmed along her pubic bone.
    And this time the heat tickled lower.
    The limousine stopped abruptly. Brenna jerked her gaze from the sight of Ethan’s hand exploring her body, toward the window, where a pickup truck with the windows rolled down idled beside them. The driver had his arm draped over the frame, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Help!” She slammed a palm against the window, felt the sting deep, but the light turned green, and they resumed their forward motion.
    “S-soft.” The word was faint, reverent, and it brought her attention back to the man whose falsely intimate touch was slowly, surely, skillfully, unraveling her. His hand cruised higher, along the leather of her jacket and over her rib cage to her breasts, and everywhere he touched, skimmed, she died a little death.
    The voice of reason screamed for her to jerk away, but another voice, this one softer, less used, pointed out there was nothing sexual to the slide of his fingers along her chest. He wasn’t trying to make her breasts ache. He wasn’t trying to make a low moan throb in her throat. He wasn’t trying to unfurl a ribbon of sensation from her chest down between her legs. He was just using his hands to orient himself.
    “Ethan.” She felt the vibration of her voice against his palm as he slid it along her throat. “Can you hear me?”
    “H-hear you.” His hand