Red (Close Contact Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

women waved.
    “Good morning, ladies.”
    They beamed at him as they walked by, then settled on side-by-side lounges at the opposite end of the row. Sloan nodded and soaked up the excess moisture from her hair and body in preparation for her escape. She secured the towel around her body with a tuck of its tail at the top of her breast, and gave him the best smile she could muster.
    “Enjoy the—”
    “Lotion me,” he asked. Though his tone made it sound more like a command.
    Sloan turned a palm up. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any.” She motioned toward the other women. “They might have some, and I’m sure they’d happily help.”
    “And you wouldn’t,” he countered.
    While she sputtered, something she didn’t recall ever having done in her life, he reached across her to a side table and plucked a tube from a decorative bowl. His body came so close to hers the heat he radiated seeped into her marrow. As he retreated, the dusting of dark hair on his chest tickled her arm.
    “Here,” he said, slapping the lotion into her hand.
    He sat on the end of the chaise, elbows on his knees. Hunching didn’t diminish his presence in the least. In fact, it drew Sloan’s attention to the sloping topography of his chest and the spread of his shoulders, which dwarfed the chair under him. When she didn’t move he tilted his chin up and directed her behind him with a thick arm.
    She circled him in a wide arc, but surrendered, tucking behind him on the hard wood. Clinically, like she treated a field wound, Sloan uncapped the sunscreen, deposited a dollop on her palm and began rubbing it onto his back. From his nape she worked her way out over his shoulders, denying the tingle the friction created below her waist. Until he leaned into her touch.
    Her belly skittered, then churned at the absurdity. Of all the horrible things she’d done in the name of greater good, this topped them all. Because a small twisted part of her enjoyed the closeness to Baine. There were layers of deception, anger, and betrayal between them, but hope hid underneath like a tiny, dingy marble under a landfill of trash. And wasn’t it ironic that he’d been the one to instill that hope inside her.
    She’d been a terrified girl in a haunted house. Alone in the universe. Her loved ones’ dead bodies ripped from her clenched fingers. Trapped as a slave. Utterly hopeless.
    Then one day a boy, bigger and older than she by a few years, she’d guessed, had wandered into the basement where she’d been washing linens and asked her to play. When she’d declined, he’d put the bag of marbles in his pocket and silently stepped up to the basin, grabbed a napkin, and scrubbed the cloth against the washboard. For one week he showed up, helped her with her chores, then went about his business. The next week they’d hurried through the chores, and then actually played. He taught her how to shoot marbles, and had even given her one the last time she’d seen him.
    But they weren’t kids any longer. And there was no hope for what he’d become.
    Sloan snapped the cap closed. “All done.”
    Before she could stand, he spun to face her. One brow furrowed. “How is it a woman like you ends up in a situation like this?”
    “A woman like me?”
    “You could choose another line of work. Toned as you are, you could be a fitness instructor.”
    “Sometimes we choose our fate,” she said. “Other times it’s chosen for us.”
    The cleft between his dark brows deepened and his jaw clenched then released. “And sometimes it’s what we make it.”
    Sloan eased back, suddenly aware that his face was less than a foot from her own. Quietly, against all of her better judgment, she asked, “Is that what you’re doing, making your fate?”
    His lips parted, but no words came. She recognized motion by the door, but when she saw Kobi with his arm draped over Nena, dismissed it as a threat. Anticipation jingled her nerves as she waited for his response. She didn’t