Bachelor Untamed Read Free Page B

was something he could truthfully say he’d always wanted to do. Now he had the chance. With the house next door vacant, he didn’t have to worry about shocking the socks off anyone.
    He lay back and looked forward to his naked swim, all alone in the lake.

Chapter 2
    E llie finished putting the last piece of her clothing away, after deciding to sleep in her aunt’s bedroom instead of the guest room she’d used whenever she would come to visit. Tomorrow she would start going through her aunt’s things. She would donate the clothes to the Salvation Army, and any items of her aunt’s that Ellie considered as keepsakes would be put away in the attic, to one day be passed on to her offspring.
    She could only shake her head, wondering how she could think of a family when she didn’t even have a boyfriend. Her last serious relationship had been a few years ago, right out of college.
    His name was Charles Wilcox, and the affair had lasted far longer than it should have. Never had she met a more boring man, one whose sole purpose in life other than hisjob as a computer programmer was his fixation with pro wrestling. He practically lived for the WWE Smackdown.
    She had landed her first job after college as a financial advisor with a major bank, and she thought her career was set for a while—only to get laid off in the first year. Instead of trying to compete in a job market that hadn’t seemed to be going anywhere, she decided to go back to college to obtain her masters degree. She had graduated last week, but intended to chill a few months before going back into the job market.
    She glanced out the bedroom window. The sun had gone down and pretty soon night would come, and she would need to turn on the lights. Once she did, there was no way Uriel wouldn’t know someone was occupying her aunt’s home. Would he immediately assume it was her? And if he did, would he hightail it back to Charlotte?
    But then, there was a possibility he didn’t even remember what had happened that summer day on the pier. After all, ten years had passed. However, she could not forget the ice-cold look he had leveled at her when he’d pretty much told her he never wanted to see her again.
    She was about to leave the room to go downstairs when the ringing of her cell phone stopped her. Her parents were presently out of the country, taking a well-earned vacation in the Bahamas. It was probably them checking to see how she was doing. Being the only child, she’d always had a special relationship with her parents.
    A quick check of the caller ID screen indicated the phone call was from Darcy and not her parents. “Hello.”
    “What’s up, El? You didn’t call to let me know you’d arrived safely.”
    Ellie smiled. Darcy was acting the mother hen as usual. “Sorry, but I got busy as soon as I got here,” she said, dropping into the chair next to the window.
    “Have you started going through your aunt’s things yet?”
    “No, not yet. I’ve decided to put it off until tomorrow. Right now the only thing I want to do is rest. I don’t care if I ever read another book again,” she said.
    Darcy laughed. “Hey, you just haven’t read the right book. Now that you have time, you need to read one by Desiree Matthews.”
    Ellie rolled her eyes. Darcy, who was a corporate executive with the city of Minneapolis, had gotten married right out of college and had gotten a divorce within the first year, when her husband, Harold, began showing abusive tendencies. The first time it happened, by the time the police arrived, Harold had been on the losing end, discovering how well his wife could defend herself. Evidently, Darcy had never told him she had taken karate while growing up.
    “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need to read a book that gets me all hot and bothered,” Ellie said, pushing the curtain aside when she thought she saw movement through the trees.
    “Trust me, reading about it is better than doing something stupid like making booty