Sinner (The Hades Squad #1) Read Free Page A

months she turned twenty-seven, and she'd never had torrid sex, never had a hot affair.
    The wind howled and lifted the top of a snowdrift into the air when Lincoln, carrying a bundle of logs, kicked the door open. An icy finger sailed on the gust, trailing a chill around Destiny's neck. She wished she'd packed a scarf, and tugged the blanket over one ear.
    Lincoln used his boot to slam the door shut.
    “Why didn't you start a fire?”
    “With what?” She'd held a dozen lit matches to one log, and the wood didn't even catch a spark.
    He looked to the ceiling.
    “The normal tools—paper, logs.”
    “Bite me,” Destiny snapped. All dreams of a romantic snowed-in couple of days went poof. What a bully.
    He stacked the logs on the other side of the fireplace and, in less time than it took her to inhale, or so it seemed, had a blazing fire crackling and spewing sparks. The scent of pine infused the air.
    “I will.” He stood and unzipped his parka. “You like it rough, I take it?”
    Lincoln shrugged out of his jacket, stowed the garment on the three-hook wooden coat stand to the right of the door, turned to face her, and smiled.
    She shivered. The man had a bone-melting, devil-may-care grin.
    “What?” He couldn’t mean….
    “You like to be bitten?” A forefinger stroked the cleft of his chin.
    “None of your business. What are you? Into kink?”
    “Depends on the kink. I'm not into pain, but I'm not averse to a love bite here and there. Or a few spanks.”
    Spanks? She was in over her head. Cripes, she'd always wondered about that. Pervasive guilt from Sunday school lessons and spending three hours in a porn superstore made her blurt, “Look, let's get a few points cleared up. Those toys and DVDs weren't for me. I don't do that kind of stuff.” She paused, trying to erase the image from her pupils of her over his knees.
    “And here I was hoping that deep throat was your specialty.” He started unbuttoning his shirt. “Do we have food?”
    “I made the list as you ordered.” She pointed to the sheet of paper on the kitchen counter. “We have a ton of dried beans, onions, potatoes, apples, garlic, pears, cereal. Not to mention a freezer full of meat—most of it venison. We won't starve. What are you doing?”
    He'd shed his uniform jacket to reveal a black T-shirt. The thin cotton material slipped and slid around the cut of his biceps. Destiny's mouth went dry, and all the moisture in her body zipped to her labia.
    “Did you find towels? Soap?”
    He pulled his undershirt over his head.
    Those ripped pecs, that ridged stomach, sucked all the oxygen out of the air. A swirl of chest hair, a tad darker than the sand of his brows, kissed milk-chocolate areolae, drifted and thinned like an arrowhead directing Destiny's attention to the— gulp —taut, swollen sex organ straining his tight trousers and a-begging for a viewing.
    “I'm flattered, baby, but you don't wear the jaw-dropped look well.” Amusement curved his lips, and flames licked his irises, making them the color of melting brown sugar.
    An inferno galloped across her body, humiliation and chagrin battling a rising fury.
    “Sara? Soap? Towels?”
    “Bathroom,” she growled.
    “I'm starved. Did you start dinner?” He draped the shirt over his shoulders and in three strides disappeared into the bedroom.
    Destiny collapsed onto the sofa. “Irritating, egotistical, conceited, pompous ass. Am I his personal servant? Did I start dinner? I should stew him .”
    Addicted to the Culinary Institute of America's cooking classes, she could've whipped up a three-course gourmet feast without working up a bead of sweat in less time than it had taken Lincoln to crash into the pear tree. The gremlin responsible for too many just-missed promotions fueled her narrow-eyed squint at the open bedroom door, and the temptation to play the big-city-woman, didn't-know-how-to-boil-water role he'd lumped her into soared and beckoned. She almost submitted.
    Then