Bear His Bond: Wylde Den Two (Alaskan Den Men Book 9) Read Online Free

With one word he doused whatever remained of the flames.
    Damn him. “Doc, huh?” She paused with her thumbs hooked in her back pockets and away from the trouble he conjured in her. “Did you practice that line since junior high?” She flicked over her shoulder as she turned to gather her gear.
    Over the past few weeks of their friends with benefits scenario when she sensed things get too serious, he’d stack an invisible wall and hide behind jokes and her profession rather than her name. It took a while for her to read the clues, but she got the hint after one night of hanging out at his brother’s bar. One slow dance and what would have been a night of salacious orgasms and breaking headboards back at her house turned into him needing to prepare for a climb the next day and a, “See you later, Doc.” Before hitting the door.
    He didn’t want personal, only fun times. She got that really, but the little pang that pierced her heart told another story.
    She blew out a deep breath through her nose. Frustration wanted to break the happy bubble encasing their early morning and now the beautiful hike, but she dashed it away. She’d never understand him. Not now and maybe not a year from now when she looked back on her time in Alaska. Better to stay in the here and now.
    “Here, hold these, will you?” Pepper handed over her environmental testing kit and bent down to pull on her knee-high waders.
    Too much contact with him would end up with them both taking in massive amounts of sunlight with their naked bodies, which she wasn’t opposed to, but the way he slipped those damn aviator glasses over his eyes gave her pause. He stood over her, his attention sliding to the surrounding wooded areas.
    After kicking off her hiking shoes, Pepper plopped down in the soft grass and craned her head back. Shielding her eyes from the sunlight, she watched one large brow arch over the rim of his sunglasses.
    With a soft touch to her cheek where a dimple was located in his own, she kept her tone light. “I bet you use those angel kisses on everyone, don’t you? I’m simply the latest victim. Admit it. You’ve lured me to the backwoods where no one can hear my screams.”
    He stared down at her for a moment before his face took on the same shocked look he got when accused of pulling a prank on his unsuspecting siblings. He gasped with the full hand-to-the chest effect and let his mouth fall open. What a faker. But he made her smile, and the way his grin spread across his lips worked magic on dissolving the hurt feelings from a moment ago.
    “First, if you’re talking about my smile and smashing good looks, then you might be right. Between you and me, I’ve been known to flash Mrs. Marty down at the donut shop a few smiles for one of her heart-stopping, double-dipped chocolate fudge brownies.” He licked his lips and raised his face up to the sun as if praying for one to fall into his hands right that minute. A small laugh slipped and she bit at her lips to hide the smile. Damn him. He always knew how to make her laugh, especially when she desperately tried not to.
    Before arriving in Claw Ridge two months earlier, she had no idea such a sinful brownie existed. As a Los Angeles native, she was no newbie to the delicacies a coffee shop offered. After her stay here, she’d have a hard time breaking her own addiction, in more ways than one.
    “Oh really. So if I learn how to make those what would you flash me?”
    The tips of his mouth curved up into a purely evil grin. It reached into the amber depths of his eyes until they brimmed with a mesmerizing mischief.
    She crossed her hands over her breasts and the motion pulled the T-shirt beneath the dangling ends of her scarf tight across her chest, earning her a hot look. With one army-green wader on and the other momentarily forgotten to the side, she squinted her eyes and shot him a quizzical glare. “Everett Wylde, what are you thinking?”
    “How good you would taste as a