The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free PDF Page A

and then lunch,” she finally said.
    “I’m up for both.”
    His confidence surprised a small laugh out of Iris. “You may make sandwiches while I shower,” she said, wheeling the bike up the sidewalk and unlocking the door. She maneuvered the bike into the small entryway and shoved it up against the wall. Tossing her wet windbreaker over the bicycle, she invited Greg to do the same with his jacket. His hip bumped hers as he draped the coat off the handlebars. His presence shrunk the hall, made it feel close, and the warm, spicy scent of him filled the cramped space.
    “Kitchen’s that way,” she said, backing toward the hall that led to her bedroom. “Bread’s in the—”
    Greg’s hand caught hers. She barely had time to register its size and roughness before he pulled her close. “Okay?” he whispered, hesitating just long enough to let her object if she wanted to, before locking his arms around her and kissing her with unexpected expertise. His body was solid, muscled, and she felt unusually fragile pressed against the length of him. Her head swam—low blood sugar, she told herself—so she clutched at his shoulders to steady herself.
    Iris broke the kiss after long, blood-stirring minutes and drew back slightly to study Greg’s face, not sure how she felt about him taking the initiative, and knowing she should at least find out his last name, if he liked the Trailblazers, had a job or a girlfriend, or preferred Thai to Italian. But the need to silence the memories that last night’s news had aroused, to bury them in an avalanche of sensation was too strong. Her lips slightly swollen, she said, “You know this is only sex, right?”
    “Whatever you say.” Kissing her again, he lifted her so her feet just cleared the floor and walked her down the hall to the open bedroom door.

    An hour and a half later, after a hot shower where the water pulsing against their bodies made the sex that much more urgent, and a leisurely and surprisingly intimate round of lovemaking on the bed, Iris rolled over, naked, to face Greg. He smiled and smoothed an index finger over her eyebrow. Rain pounded steadily against the roof.
    “You are not twenty-four,” she said.
    He looked surprised. “No, I’m twenty-nine. What made you think I was twenty-four?”
    “Lassie.” Come to think of it, he hadn’t actually said Greg was twenty-four. What kind of game was Lassie playing?
    Greg laughed. “He and my sister are quite the pair. You’d think I was twelve the way they treat me sometimes.”
    “What’s your last name?” That seemed like the bare minimum she ought to know about a man who’d taken her out of herself so completely she felt disoriented. She folded her fingers around the obsidian pendant at her neck to ground herself.
    “Lansing. Gregory Allen Lansing.”
    Remembering the script on the pickup truck, Iris asked, “You own a landscape company?”
    “Yep. I’m a landscape architect. I’ve owned the business since I got out of college, and I paid back my main investors—Mom and Dad—eighteen months ago.”
    Iris raised her brows but said nothing. His career explained the solid muscles, the farmer’s tan, the callused hands. There was more to Greg than she’d expected when she set out to pick him up at Lassie’s. The thought of Lassie’s reaction gave her pause. “Does … your sister know you’re here?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. What a stupid-ass question to ask an adult man.
    “Does it matter?” Greg sounded amused.
    Lassie’s friendship mattered, but he had no right to pass judgment on who she slept with. With any luck, he wouldn’t find out that she and Greg had spent a rainy afternoon together in bed. “You know I’m thirty-eight?” If he called her a “cougar,” he was out the door.
    “No one would take you for a day over thirty-six,” he assured her, running his hand over her flat abdomen.
    Momentarily taken aback, she slapped at his hand, and then laughed.