Candy Crush Read Online Free Page A

snorted. “No you won’t. Come on, you
can stay with me. It’s only four blocks away. I usually walk to
work, so I’ll ride home with you.”
    “Absolutely not,” she said with such
vehemence that Brandon laughed. She gave him a cross look and he
sobered to just a lip twitch.
    “I’m not harmless,” he admitted. “But I’m
not a rapist or serial killer or whatever the hell you’re afraid of
right now.”
    “I’m not afraid,” Gabriella insisted. More like petrified, but I’m not sure if it’s of him or my
reactions to him .
    “You’re a lousy liar too. Come on, let’s go
back to the pizza parlor first. Aunt Korina will vouch for me.”
    “And I’m supposed to take her word?”
    “Sure. She makes the best pizza in
town.”
    Gabriella didn’t exactly agree with his
convoluted reasoning, yet somehow, some way, she found herself
standing next to her car on the grassy curb, staring up at an
imposing Victorian home, complete with intricate scrollwork on the
tallest point. A light shone over the front door, illuminating a
wide front porch that wrapped around the side of the house. A
pentagon-shaped tower jutted out into the porch corner. She could
tell there were two large trees in the front yard. Everything else
was dark.
    “It’s huge,” she said before she could stop
herself.
    Brandon chuckled. “See, you can relax, Sweet
Pea. We don’t even have to sleep in the same wing, if you don’t
want to.”
    Gabriella glanced back at her car and the
miniature U-Haul trailer hooked to the bumper. “What about the
trailer? I’m supposed to return it by the end of day tomorrow.”
    Brandon thought about it for a moment. “I’ll
think of something by tomorrow,” he finally said. And for some
inexplicable reason, Gabriella believed him. “Come on.” He started
walking towards the house.
    “It’s beautiful,” Gabriella breathed, still
rooted to the spot, staring once again at the antique home.
    Brandon stopped walking and turned to give
her a bemused look. “It’s good looking too, but you’ll have to wait
until daylight to get the full effect. It was my great-grandma
Sarantos’. By the time she passed, everyone else who was old enough
had a home, so I got it by default. Luckily, I’m pretty handy,
because it wasn’t in very good shape when I inherited it.”
    “I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she
started again, but Brandon shook his head and cut her off.
    “Stop stressing, Sweet Pea. I like my
position with the DDA and my family probably already likes you more
than they like me. You’re safe here.”
    The look he gave her was contradictory to
what he said. The look said, You’re anything but safe with me.
Want to see my bedroom ?
    Gabriella wondered what the hell she was
doing. She was going home with a man she’d met only hours ago, in a
small town that she knew nothing about, with no family or friends
to help her if she ended up in trouble. What if he really was a
mass murderer? Or a rapist?
    Or worse: what if he came on to her and she
was too overwhelmed, too tired to resist? She shivered delicately.
Brandon leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I only bite if you
ask nicely.”
    Gabriella straightened and walked around to
the trunk of her car, goaded into action by his assumption that she
might be interested in doing just that. She was not attracted to him, damn it.
    She opened the trunk and began shifting
through the bags and suitcases. She pulled out a bag of dog food
and a shoulder bag that contained Butter’s necessities and handed
them to Brandon. Then she pulled out one of the suitcases, pushed a
button to pop out the handle, and pulled it up the curb and
followed him up the front walk to the porch.
    At the front door, Brandon said, “Get your
dog. We have skunks out here. You shouldn’t leave her outside alone
after dark.” So Gabriella called Butter and the three of them
walked into the house.
    Brandon flipped on two light switches
simultaneously, brightening both