Predator's Serenade Read Online Free

clear anger. A blush of fury colored her cheeks, ornamenting her face right down to her rounded nostrils.
    "Gioia?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
    "The first words he's said in weeks," she spat. Her spectacular chest rose and fell with her jerky breath. "Why did he have to say them to you?" With that, she turned and hurried out of the clearing toward the lodge. On her way, she tripped over her feet a couple of times. Her swearing echoed in the woods. “Fuck nuggets!”
    Soren found himself admiring her cursing ability. As one whose own language was often peppered with expletives, variety was a quality he respected in others, especially women.
    He stared after her, his bear roaring in apprehension inside him. And his boner was back big time. He looked at his brother, at a complete loss. "What did I do?"
    Ry merely patted him on the back and curled his lip in sympathy. "Welcome back to Gemini Island, bro."
    * * * *
    Gioia wasn't sure why she fled from Soren Snow. After all, the man had managed to pry several syllables out of her son, which was more than she'd been able to do in months. She should be thanking Soren. She should be genuflecting before the rock god and offering her humble thanks and praise for his kind attention to a poor soul.
    However, she really just wanted to hit him.
    She stopped running when she got close to the cobbled pathway leading to the lodge entrance. Picking out a nearby park bench, Gioia sat. As relaxing as the surroundings were, her heart fluttered with unease. She concentrated on a small group of children playing on one of the expansive lawns and grinned at their antics. She wanted Gunnar to feel free like that. He used to be carefree and innocent. Not anymore.
    Gioia swallowed hard in an attempt to dislodge the lump in her throat. She wrestled with ragged emotions, the same ones that had been pushing her to the edge for weeks, for months. She felt like crying all the time, which was unusual. She wasn't a crier; hadn't been since Paul died, when all her tears dried up. She generally had no time for moping anyway. Between working her day job as an office manager for an accounting company and caring for Gunnar, she wasn't at liberty to carve out chunks of time to bare her soul. But since arriving at the Ursa Lodge, her eyes seemed constantly waterlogged.
    She just wanted her son, her only child, to be happy. He'd almost looked happy when he'd mumbled those three words to Soren Snow. And all the musician had said was "little dude." Bond established instantly. Even though she'd spent endless days appealing to Gunnar, encouraging him and offering to listen to him, he'd been moved by "little dude."
    She supposed if the words had come from someone else, like Ryland or Lia, she wouldn't have minded. But because they'd been mumbled by a man who was the antithesis of everything she stood for, it stung. Soren Snow of the interminable line of celebrity girlfriends, designer jeans, and a face whose features were arranged so perfectly it seemed criminal.
    His appearance in person had stunned her; she couldn't deny it. For Christ’s sake, seeing him had almost caused her to fall to the ground. His longish-blond hair reminded her of that movie actor she liked, the one who was in all those period pieces. Long enough to pull back and soft enough you wanted to release it from its elastic and feel it falling over your fingers. His cat-like blue eyes were unusual, almost Asian in their tapered contours, making him appear even more mysterious. Unfortunately, they seemed to be constantly appraising her and finding her lacking. And that body…well, she might be a mother to a tween, but she still understood the power of heaven-sent proportions. He stood about six feet three, but appeared even more imposing when you factored in his obvious strength. Thanks to his drumming, or perhaps a battalion of expensive personal trainers, Soren absolutely rippled with muscle. It coursed along his broad shoulders, curved over his biceps,