Small-Town Redemption Read Free Page A

clown’s wig and stick-straight, fell past her shoulders. Heavy makeup hid the freckles on her nose and upper cheeks. She’d done something to her eyes, had lined them in thick black, used dark shadow on the lids then coated her pale lashes with what looked to be several layers of mascara. Her lips were a glossy pink.
    She looked like a kid who’d gotten into her mother’s makeup.
    “Just what I meant,” he said. “Not interested.”
    Maybe he’d been a little bit interested a few minutes ago. She was right about one thing; he was a man. And she had been plastered against him. Not that skinny women with bad attitudes did much for him, but her hands had been soft on his arm, her fingers warm. And, he had to admit, she smelled good, really good, her perfume subtle and sweet. A contrast to her do-me heels and the permanent scowl she wore around him.
    Practically vibrating with fury, she slapped her hands on her hips, the move tugging her shirt open and giving him a glimpse of smooth, creamy skin and the edge of a lacy black bra.
    His body stirred. It was that damn man thing again.
    “Oh, no. You are not doing this to me. Do you have any idea how long it took me to straighten my hair?” she asked, jabbing at her head hard enough to drill her finger right into her brain. “I can’t breathe, my feet hurt and I paid one hundred dollars for this stupid push-up bra.”
    He let his gaze drop to her chest for one long, lazy moment. When he raised his eyes back to hers, she swallowed visibly. He smirked. “You might want to get your money back.”
    She blanched before color rushed into her cheeks. She opened her mouth, no doubt to lay him flat, but then she shut her eyes and inhaled deeply, which, admittedly, did some interesting things to those small breasts.
    On second thought, maybe that bra had been a good investment.
    She opened her eyes, the glint in the light blue depths warning him he may have made a misstep.
    Wouldn’t be his first.
    She stormed up to him, all painted-on jeans, long legs and bad humor. “We are going to have sex, you hear me?” To punctuate her statement, she undid the top button of her shirt.
    Kane paused in the middle of taking another sip of coffee. Raised an eyebrow. It was a bluff, that single button. It had to be. She didn’t have the guts to undo another one.
    He hoped.
    “Right here,” she continued, proving him wrong by yanking another one free. “Right now.” And another. “So stop pretending to be noble and take what is being offered to you.”
    She dragged her shirt off her arms and threw it on the ground like a football player spiking the ball after a touchdown. Held his gaze, her breathing ragged, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her pale skin fairly glowing in his dimly lit kitchen.
    His body responded to the sight of the soft curve of her breasts, her flat stomach and the ever-so-slight indentation of her narrow waist, and he considered, seriously considered, doing just that. Whether it was due to her being half-naked, his recent sexual dry spell or simply his resistance being down didn’t matter. In that moment, he wanted her. It pissed him off, this sudden, vicious need to have her.
    Again and again and again.
    That’s what his father would have done. What Kane had been brought up to do. Take what was so easily offered, so carelessly given. He’d been born into a wealthy family. A powerful one. Raised to believe he was better than others by virtue of his last name and his father’s financial worth.
    Throw in his looks, and there had never been a shortage of available females ready and willing to do whatever it took to make Kane happy. To get his attention, to be on his arm—or in his bed.
    There was a time when he wouldn’t have cared that Red was his employee’s sister, that they barely knew each other. That she didn’t want him so much as she wanted to use him. He would have used her, too, then set her aside without another thought or care.
    He liked to think