Traitor, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the east, it
accommodated young professionals with incomes on the rise.
    Up a flight of well-worn stairs and down a poorly lighted
corridor, a door at the end of the hall opened into a surprisingly spacious and
homey apartment. Bella took in the sparse furnishings and understated décor. A
man's place, arranged for convenience and comfort with minimal distraction.
    Rafe pushed her into a deep, oversized arm chair that faced
a giant plasma television screen, propped her feet on the hassock in front of
the chair, and left the living area through a white shuttered swinging door.
Bella glanced at the small end table to her left, littered with half-opened
mail, yesterday's newspaper, and the latest television guide.
    He returned moments later bearing a small first-aid kit
containing bandages, antibiotics, and hydrogen peroxide, along with a clean
white towel. He pushed the end-table contents onto the floor, set down the
items, and knelt to inspect her knees. As he hunched over her wounds, she noted
the flecks of gray woven through the thick jet waves.
    "This might sting," he warned, dabbing at her knee
with a peroxide-soaked cotton ball.
    "Ouch!"
    "Don't be a baby," he chastised, blowing on her
knee and sounding exactly like Consuelo. But the slight roughness of his
callused fingertips as he held her calf wasn't anything at all like her sister's
touch.
    "That's fine," she said impatiently, attempting to
rise from the chair.
    "Whoa, there, you're not going anywhere until I bandage
that knee."
    He shoved her back down and quickly smoothed ointment onto
the abrasion, then fitted on a large bandage. Without a word he took her hands
in his and examined the scrapes on the heels. Dabbing them with more peroxide,
he then placed them in her lap, his own large hands covering hers.
    Now his face hovered inches from hers as he examined her
eyes. She hated the strong betrayers of her emotions, the flush that crept into
her normally pale cheeks and the pattering of her heart.
    "Is it that hard for you to let someone help you,
Isabella?" Rafe's breath fanned her cheek and the tangy scent of liquor
filled her nostrils. He seemed sincerely curious and rather gentle.
    She blinked furiously and protested, "I let people help
me." Her voice sounded thick in her own ears.
    "Like hell you do," he said softly, tucking an
errant curl behind her ear. An eternity passed with him alternating between
staring at her lips and examining her eyes. And then he said what she'd been
thinking all along. "Do you want to kiss me, Isabella?" Her name
rolled off his tongue with the intoxicating accent of one schooled in her
native tongue. Ees – sah – BEL - la.
    She expected it, but even so, she felt a thrill of shock
when what they'd begun in the bar and continued in the alley looked like it
might finish right here in Rafe's apartment. The night's danger fled her mind
like trees stripped bare on a windy day.
    "Do you, Isabella?" he murmured again, just as if
he'd read her mind, and the answer to the question was a simple, unqualified
yes.
    "What about my knee?" she whispered staring at his
mouth. "What about the scrapes on my hands?" She held them up for his
inspection as if they were proof of required kissing.
    He took her hands in both of his, smoothing rough fingertips
over the tender palms, and then in turn, lifting each one to his mouth and
placing gentle kisses on them. Then he leaned in slowly to kiss her mouth. Not
like the kiss in the alley, not the heated passion of mating, but a gentle
melding of two people in tentative like with each other.
    Tremors started in her thighs and injured knee and traveled
upward to her shoulders while tears prickled her eyes. Clearly recognizing her
case of the shakes, Rafe pulled her into his arms. He brushed back the damp
hair from her forehead and wrapped his large, hard body around her.
    "It's just a delayed reaction." He spoke into her
temple, his lips warm against her skin. "Don't worry."
    Swiping at her tears, Bella