THROTTLE: (A Stepbrother Romance) Read Online Free PDF

she waited as he seemed to war with himself.   “Just let me think,” he said in a voice so
gravelly she shuddered.   He was trembling
too.   The hand on her shoulder seemed
conflicted as his fingers dug into her flesh and then released.   When he released her she struggled out of his
grip to stand defensively in the hall.
    "What’s
going on, Jared?” she demanded, glaring at him as he stood with his legs apart,
braced for an argument.
    "Too
many things to count," his gaze never left her, heated and dark as he
looked her over. Advancing slowly, he followed as she backed down the hallway,
her heart beating erratically. There was a wild look in his eyes that sent a
shot of adrenaline coursing through her.
      "You told me to come and take what’s
mine.”
    "I
did,” she said, wondering what he was thinking.   The man in front of her wasn’t the Jared she’d held last night.   He seemed aggressive but still just as torn,
as if the very act of coming to her had broken all of his thinly controlled
restraint. His gaze flicked over her again, his scrutiny intense.
    “Look
at you,” he said, almost reverentially, removing his cap and dropping it to the
floor.   “Where’d that girl go?”
    “She’s
still here, inside.”   Emma touched her
hand to her heart and his eyes followed, looking at the curve of her breasts in
a way that hardened her nipples.  
    He
advanced on her again, until she was backed against the far wall of the living
room.
    Emma
stared up at him, feeling the hairs on her arms rise straight up at his proximity.
The look in his eyes lit a fire in her blood. Breathe, she had to remind herself. Were her fingertips trembling?
She balled her hand into a fist to contain the movement.
    "I’ve
been waiting for you for so long," she whispered, turning away as he
leaned closer to her, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of him and the
burning heat that raged between them. The tip of his nose touched her ear,
moved over her hair as he inhaled her scent. She breathed him in too, realizing
it was the same manly fragrance that lingered on the paper of every letter he’d
ever sent her.   Smoky and masculine, it
got to her like some kind of drug.
    "Waiting
for what?" he asked softly. The warmth of his breath teased across her
ear, a delightfully sensual caress.
    "You
know."   She swallowed heavily,
leaning back against the wall.   Jared’s gaze
was so intense, but she didn’t look away.   The timid fifteen-year-old that she’d once been was long gone and he
needed to know that, to really believe it in his heart so there was no guilt in
their union.   After seconds that felt
like minutes had passed he chuckled softly, bracing one arm over her head as he
reached with his other hand to begin unzipping his jacket.
    "Suppose
I don't," he said. Another tug and it was loose. His hand trailed up her
front, barely grazing over the fabric of her camisole, until he reached her neck.   She shivered, thinking about what those hands
had done for her.   In court, the
pathologist had listed the severe bruising they’d caused to his father’s neck,
crushing his windpipe in fury.   She knew
what Jared was capable of, but she felt no fear as he tilted her head slowly
back to face him.   "Tell me."
    Emma
wasn't sure she could breathe, let alone speak. His touch was gentle, almost
reverent, fingertips feather-light against her skin. The pad of his thumb came
to rest below the line of her jaw, just over the throbbing pulse-point in her
neck.
    Strength
radiated from his fingertips, his dark-eyed gaze unrelenting.
    "Tell
me," he insisted, lingering close enough to brush noses lightly.
    "I
already did," she whispered. In letters it was easier to confess such
things, and confess them she had; every forbidden, illicit desire that passed
through her mind, her nearly feverish yearning to be reunited with him and to
finally embrace him as a lover.
    Why
did he persist in tormenting her?
    "Emma,"
he growled, and his fingers