The Alpha's Choice Read Online Free PDF

inside or out?" she asked
again in a reasonable attempt to sound casual. She grabbed the
dishes up and hoped they didn't crack in her tight fisted grip. The
robe was called a cover-up because that's what it did, right? He
couldn't see anything. Then why did the look in his eye make her
feel as if he could see everything?
    "Do you want to eat inside or out?"
    Charles licked his lips, eyes half closed,
and then shook himself out of whatever reverie he was falling into.
"Oh, outside, definitely. Let's enjoy it while we can. Rain's
coming and I doubt we'll be doing any running tonight. Moon's
waning anyway."
    She piled the plates on the tray, reached up
for a platter and looked back over her shoulder. "Ah, you're a
runner."
    "Yeah, sure. Aren't you?" He checked the
sizzling bacon, removed some and added more before he looked her
way. "With those legs, you'd have to be," he said
appreciatively.
    His eyes said he approved of more than her
legs, so she held the Betty Grable pin-up pose a moment longer than
she had to, watching him watching her. This was something she'd
never done before. She was flirting outrageously and apparently
doing a decent job of it. It was fun. That Charles obviously found
her attractive made it more fun. Maybe Grams was right and she was
a late bloomer, a really late bloomer. Kat did a mental shrug.
Better late than never, right?
    She'd always felt like she'd missed some
rungs on the boy/girl attraction ladder. She'd climbed it just fine
until she was twelve or thirteen. At that age, she could sigh and
swoon with the best of them over boy bands or current TV heart
throbs. Her sexual fantasies were normal for girls that age, at
least according to the psych classes she'd taken in college.
    But as her body reached its physical
adulthood, something went wrong. She was sure her preferences lay
with the opposite sex. She could definitely appreciate the male
form in the abstract and fantasize about the usual what-ifs, but
she never got that toe curling tingle of desire for any of the boys
or men she'd dated and it wasn't for lack of opportunity. She was
neither a wallflower nor a celibate when she met The Bastard.
    Her relationship with The Bastard, she
refused to call him by his name, had been based on common
interests, compatibility, and future goals rather than sexual
attraction and she had been content. They were both busy and their
night time conjugal forays were about physical release more than
passion. It wasn't great. It wasn't awful. It was supposed to
produce two children when the time was right and then, she assumed,
fade into the background. After the two children, if he'd wished to
continue that side of their relationship, she wouldn't have
refused, but she wouldn't have questioned his withdrawal from it
either.
    In their eight years together, she'd never
once felt the tingle of anticipation she was feeling now.
    "You want butter or jam with your
toast?" 
    Thank heavens she'd already laid the plates
on the glass topped table or they would have gone the way of the
knives and forks, up in the air and clattering to the flagstone of
the patio. She hadn't seen, heard, or felt him move up behind
her.
    "Oops, sorry," he said sounding not the least
bit repentant. He set the platter of bacon and eggs on the table
and quickly stooped to retrieve the knife that landed by her foot
where he lingered a moment more than necessary.
    "That's a good way to get you nose whacked,"
she told him, stepping away and folding her arms across her
chest.
    He handed her the knife with the same smirky
grin used by the fourteen year old boys who used a dropped pencil
as an excuse to look up her skirt. Kat didn't let them get away
with it. She wasn't going to let the housepainter get away with it
either. Unlike the boys at school, however, Charles didn't look the
least bit guilty or offer up any lame excuses.
    "Can't blame a guy for trying," he
shrugged.
    "I can if he's old enough to know better,"
she told him while trying in vain