Take Me Under Read Online Free Page B

in a quiet restaurant, free to stare at him for as long as she wanted, would be more than she’d had in . . . in what felt like a long, wasted forever. But she couldn’t do it. As much as she wanted that fresh start to start
now
, she couldn’t shove past the walls that were pinning her in.
    He didn’t push her. But he didn’t back down, either.
    “I’ll give you some space tonight,” he told her, the look in his dark eyes hard with challenge, “but I’m only going to ask again tomorrow. And one way or another, Reese, you’re going to say yes.”
    “To dinner?”
    That bottle-green gaze settled on her mouth, and his voice got rougher. “For starters.”
    Reese stood frozen in place, breath locked in her lungs as he turned and left the kitchen. The front door opened and closed a few seconds later.
    For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she twisted around, looking out the tiny window over the sink just in time to catch a glimpse of him as he climbed into a big, black truck. She gripped the edge of the counter, watching as he backed out of the driveway and disappeared around the high wall of colorful hydrangea that shielded the two houses from the road.
    Long after he’d driven away, Reese still stood at the window—her chest tight, heart pounding—wishing so badly that she’d had the courage to say yes. To dinner. To just spending time with him . . .
    And to whatever the hell else Ben Hudson might want from her.

2
    B EN KNEW A MAN WAS IN DEEP SHIT WHEN HE WAS SITTING ACROSS THE table from one beautiful woman, but couldn’t get another one out of his head. Granted, he wasn’t fucking Brit Cramer. They were just friends. But he’d never had trouble giving her his complete attention before.
    He probably should have passed when she called and asked if he wanted to meet her for dinner at McClain’s. But he’d been wearing down his floorboards at home, too wound up by the knowledge that Reese was right next door. He couldn’t calm the hell down, and that wasn’t like him. No matter how shitty or stressful his life got, he’d always been able to kick back at the end of the day and enjoy some downtime. It was what kept him sane. But ever since he’d heard that Reese was getting divorced, he hadn’t been acting like himself. Learning that she was determined to put some serious miles between her and that Ivy League ex of hers by relocating to Moss Beach had been a shock to his system. It’d messed with his mind.
    Hell, it had him so twisted up inside he felt like a fucking pretzel.
    And now that she was so close, he wanted her so badly he could taste the hunger. A seething, gut-burning craving that had been growing for three frustrating years, cranking higher every goddamn time he saw her . . . talked to her. Since that first night he’d met her at Gary’s birthday party, he’d compared every woman he got involved with to Reese, and they came up lacking. It was as if she’d marked him or some weird shit like that, rewiring his brain.
    And she’d never had a clue . . .
    He shook his head, unable to wrap his mind around that bizarre revelation. Even her ex had known. The guy was an ass, but Drew Leighton hadn’t been blind. Ben knew the man had sensed his primitive interest, and so the hotshot lawyer had made it a point to stick close to Reese whenever Ben had been around. Perceptive guy.
    Just not a very smart one.
    From what Ben had heard, once they were back in Boston, Drew had found it more fun playing with the women he worked with than with his wife. At the start of the new year, Reese had finally found out about Drew’s philandering—word in her family was that she’d literally caught the idiot with his pants down—and she’d filed for divorce the next day. According to Gary and Connie, the divorce had gone fairly quickly because Reese didn’t want anything but her personal savings. It took class and backbone to walk away from the life she’d had, but he shouldn’t have been