To Love a Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

bound to attract a certain amount of attention, and that would be fatal. No, dammit, she would have to stay until the job was done, but he found that solution almost as unacceptable as the others.
    A truly decent man would no doubt scrap the whole business rather than endanger a hair of that silvery-blond head, but he had known for years that decency wasn’t one of his strong suits. He needed the money, that was the thing; a hundred thousand dollars was nothing to sneeze at. It would give him and Jay a big head start on the kind of life he had always wanted for them, would let them make a down payment on a ranch and stock it with cattle. There was no way he was going to kiss goodbye the chance of a good life for himself and his son just because some sexy little female had managed to get herself mixed up in a situation that might be the death of her. He had done more than anyone could reasonably expect by bringing her back to camp with him, when every vestige of common sense he possessed had urged him to leave her unconscious in the jungle. But some long-buried chivalrous instinct had surfaced, and to the slack-jawed amazement of his men he had picked her up and slung her into the back of the jeep. And, like all impulsive acts, this one was turning into a disaster of major proportions.
    From the moment he had carried her into the tent and turned the beam of his flashlight on her, he’d known he had a problem. The red, oozing cuts and welts adorning her body hadn’t been enough to disguise her long-limbed beauty. He had felt the first unwelcome stirrings of desire as he’d stripped her of her ruined clothing, and had had to force himself to forget that blondes had always been his weakness. He had reminded himself that she was hurt, and helpless, and that by picking her up in the jungle he had, however reluctantly, made himself responsible for her welfare. So he had continued to tend her hurts, reasoning that it would save trouble among the men if he was the only one to get near her. Somehow he’d managed to convince himself that he was in total control of his bodily urges, but then, of course, he’d had no way of knowing that the little witch would lure him into her bed on the pretext of a nightmare and then proceed to handle him in a way no red-blooded male could resist. The raging lust she had aroused had demanded instant satisfaction, and he had lost his head and taken what she had begged him to take. And God, it had felt good! Better than any sex he had had in years. Just remembering the feel of that soft, silky body writhing beneath his was enough to make his mouth go dry. Which was exactly why he mustn’t remember, he told himself savagely. If anything was to be salvaged from this shambles, he would have to put her body out of his mind. From now on he would stay far from her. The job would be finished in less than three weeks, and then he would be back in the good old U.S.A. with enough money to buy any woman in the world.
    The job, not the woman, was the important thing, Sam reminded himself, and it was one that only a crack bunch of commandos could pull off. Three months of painstaking effort had gone into assembling this squad, which numbered fifteen, plus himself. Another three months had been spent in training them. Soldiers who fight for money, mercenaries if you would, were the most professional of professionals. They had to be, because their lives depended on their skills. But it was on how well the group functioned as a team that the success of the job would hinge.
    As the leader, Sam was well paid for his efforts, half in advance—fifty thousand cool smackers already safely tucked away in a U.S. bank—the other half when it was done. Plus expenses, of course, which had already been considerable. The men got less, amounts ranging from ten to fifty thousand dollars depending on what Sam felt their contribution was worth. And so far everything had gone like clockwork. They’d managed to get into the