The Bliss Factor Read Online Free Page A

in he walked, all six and a half feet of him, dark hair waving back from that rugged, almost-handsome face, still wearing leather accessorized by a bandage with a slight seep of blood showing through. Instead of setting off alarm bells, it just seemed to add to the . . . okay, dashing figure he cut.
    He stopped just inside the door, as surprised as she was. He recovered in seconds, though, giving her a bow and a flourish while she sat there staring, open-mouthed, heart pounding, nerves throbbing in places that hadn’t throbbed since . . . an hour ago, when he’d kissed her. Before that it had been a long time. A really long time. Too long, if she was throbbing over a man who chose to live his life as an historical anachronism.
    “Milady,” he said as he straightened, returning her stare with an irreverent grin. “A pleasure to . . . see you again.”
    Those sparkling blue eyes dropped to her mouth, her face heated to roughly the temperature of the sun, and she was on her feet, even before she’d formed the intent and despite her suddenly wobbly knees.
    “You have got to be kidding,” she said to her mother, but her eyes stayed on the man Annie Bliss had called Conn, which was a pretty apt name for him since Rae felt like she’d been had.
    And there stood her parents, acting like it was an everyday occurrence to send a man like that to stay with her. Rae tried to work herself around to the door, hands out to ward them all off before they dragged her into their delusion.
    “He looks like he can take care of himself,” she said.
    He looked like he could take care of her, too. And she had no business thinking about that kiss, not to mention any other surprises he might come up with if she were stupid enough to let him get that close to her again. “He didn’t have any trouble with those two guys earlier. Wait . . .” Her eyes went to the bandage. “That was real, wasn’t it? They actually wanted to kill him?”
    “They only had swords,” her father said.
    “They only had . . .” She threw up her hands, wondering why it surprised her that she was the only one who found that comment ridiculous. “What if they come after him with guns next time?”
    “Guns?” Conn asked. “What is guns ?”
    Rae didn’t move, but her eyes shifted to her mother’s face.
    “Oh, by the way,” Annie said with an infuriatingly calm smile. “Conn has amnesia.”

chapter 3
    “AMNESIA?” RAE STAGGERED BACK TWO STEPS and dropped onto the hard bench seat. Her gaze went to Conn again, still smirking at her but with no sign of prevarication on his face, then to her father, smiling reassuringly.
    Annie just looked smug. Rae hated smug. It was the expression she’d seen every time she lost a fight with her mother, which was every time they’d fought. Except that last time, when she’d walked away for good.
    Annie’s smile faltered, as if she, too, were remembering where being right all the time had gotten her. “It’s the way between mothers and daughters,” she said.
    “Still reading my mind?”
    “Reliving my own childhood,” Annie said.
    Rae smiled faintly. “So, let me get this straight, that fight wasn’t staged.”
    “No.”
    The answer came from Conn, but she kept her eyes on her mother’s face, which, surprise , was the safer way to go. “And you want me to take him home with me, so the bad guys will come after me, too?”
    “We wouldn’t ask you to take him in if it wasn’t safe.”
    True, but her mother’s version of safe and her version of safe were two different things. Annie might choose to think the best of Connor Larkin, but Rae wasn’t getting the warm fuzzies from him. Volcanic eruption was too mild a description for what she felt when she looked at Connor Larkin. And then there were the Captain Jack Sparrow wannabes to worry about.
    “He really does need your help,” Annie insisted. “He’s not safe here.”
    “What makes you think he’ll be safe at my house? Not to mention me?”
    “For