Tempted by a Dangerous Man Read Online Free Page A

 
    My ending up with Corbin was really my dad’s fault for pushing me so hard, not giving me time to develop friends, a life.  
    My father and his distrustful meddling. If he hadn’t hired Smile to spy on me… I felt my anger tick up a notch. “We put the fun in dysfunctional,” Rob liked to say when things were particularly bad.  
    But there was no fun.
    My mind turned back to Corbin as I chased his mocking tracks through the snow. Far as I could see, he hadn’t paused anywhere, giving me a chance to catch up. And he damned sure hadn’t turned around at any point . The bastard was long gone.  
    The trail split, and I stopped to catch my breath. I considered following the other path. Two roads diverging in a not-so-yellow wood and all that. The pristine path seemed level whereas Corbin had, of course, chosen the steeper trail. Going off on my own would teach Corbin a valuable lesson, too; he should have waited there for me, should have asked which way I wanted to go.
    Screw it. I would find him, get the keys—even if I had to skewer him on a pole to do it. Maybe I’d leave him out there. See how he liked it.
    I redoubled my effort, the poles stabbing the snow with every step. I finally settled into a predictable if ungraceful rhythm. Left pole, right leg. Right leg, left pole. Blood was pumping through my veins now, and the angry buzz quieted, then melted away. The wind’s kiss on my cheeks turned from biting to soothing.  
    After forty minutes of hard walking, I saw Corbin up ahead, the backpack hanging from a broken branch. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking calm and at ease. When I drew near, he pulled a yogurt bar out of one of his coat pockets and handed it to me, then held out a large, sloshing pouch with backpack straps.
    “That’s yours,” he said.
    “Not going to make me eat snow if I get thirsty?” I gave him a dirty look as I ripped ravenously into the bar, then washed it down with several swallows of pouch water. “What if I need to pee or something?”
    Corbin gestured to indicate that there were plenty of places to take care of that. “You’re hardly shy.” He handed me a small bag of mixed nuts. I jammed them into my pocket.
    He pulled the snowshoes out of the backpack’s bungee lacing and dropped the smaller ones in front of me. “Lean on me,” he said as he knelt.
    “I want the keys.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “Come on.”
    There was something a little weird about looking down at a 6’3” man who was pure muscle. And an unexpected thought floated into my mind: I wanted him on his knees, but not like this. On one knee.
    The thought was so disconcerting that rather than follow through on my demand, I placed my hand on his shoulder. Even through his coat, I felt the solid strength of his thick muscles.  
    “Little help here,” he grunted. “Don’t want to knock you over.”  
    I picked up my foot, and he slid a snowshoe underneath and tightened the bindings. When they were both on, he made me walk back and forth a few times until he was satisfied that everything was properly adjusted.
    “How long is this trek gonna be, anyway? Because—”
    “Long as it takes.” He stepped into his snowshoes and tightened them.
    “Takes to do what?”
    Instead of answering, Corbin hefted the pack onto his shoulders. “Give me your hand.” He held open the loop on my hiking pole and put my fingers through it. “Like this,” he said, pressing the pole’s handle into my palm.  
    “Apparently I don’t even know how to hold the poles, so why would you run off and leave me?”
    I expected him to gaze into my eyes, say something about how he would never leave me. Instead, he squinted at the canopy of evergreens overhead. “Four hours and we’ll stop for a nice lunch.”
    “Four hours!”
    But he was already walking off, swinging his arms gracefully, looking like a goddamn ballet on snowshoes.
    “Crap,” I mumbled under my breath. I slipped my arms through