The Distraction Read Free

was too packed with ice cream to fit any frozen meals.
    â€œPizza it is,” I said aloud, then made the call for delivery to a place in South Tampa famous for their thin crust. It probably would have been a good idea to pick something up while I’d been out, but I’d been too focused on my beautiful red velvet friend.
    I opened the lid of the box and removed the pretty cupcake, feeling a surge of loneliness. I’d only known Alec a few weeks before he’d gone to jail, but sometimes I missed him so badly it hurt.
    â€œHappy Birthday to me,” I said quietly, peeling back the dainty wrapper and taking a bite. Twenty-eight years old, and in a serious, committed relationship with a man I hadn’t spoken to in eleven weeks and four days. Living in an apartment still owned by an imprisoned billionaire mogul who’d sent his nephew to kill me. And spending my birthday alone. The cream cheese icing only took a little of the sting away.
    I still had an hour before the pizza was delivered, so I hauled my bag into the bedroom, now adorned with a nightstand lamp and a drawer full of my clothes, and left the cupcake on the dresser so I could shower. When I was clean, I towel-dried my long, wet hair, and laid out two outfits side by side on the bed.
    One was a black teddy with thigh-highs. The other a red lace bra and panty set with a frilly little skirt. Just looking at them gave me a little thrill. For Alec’s first night back I wanted to wear something special. And then I wanted to make him act out every fantasy my overactive imagination had come up with in his absence.
    â€œRed or black?” I took another bite of the cupcake. He’d liked me in red. He’d liked me in black, too. I giggled a little. He wasn’t really all that hard to please.
    At least, he hadn’t been.
    I put the outfits back into the bag and stuffed it into the drawer. The big decisions could come later. I still had to clean and figure out what I needed to pick up at the supermarket tomorrow.
    Because the next day Alec would be home.
    I closed my eyes, and rubbed one hand over my breasts, remembering the way he caressed them. The way his fingers felt dipping beneath my panties. How my body became charged and ready, just from a look.
    The memories were enough to make my blood heat.
    If he didn’t want me anymore, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
    I ate another bite of the cupcake.
    A moment later, a knock came at the door. I checked the time, surprised to see that the pizza guy was still twenty minutes early. Throwing on some pink pajama pants and one of Alec’s T-shirts, I hurried back toward the kitchen to get my purse.
    â€œJust a second,” I called. “I’ll be right there.”
    Wallet in hand, I glanced at the baseball bat I left leaning against the wall—a safety precaution I’d added since Bobby had abducted me—and opened the front door. I looked up, and then up higher, into the stormy blue eyes of the man who stood in the hallway.
    My heart stopped in my chest.
    â€œHey.” Alec’s gaze lowered slowly down my body. “Nice shirt.”

Two
    F or a second I thought I was dreaming. Before me was Alec, at least, a man who looked like Alec. The careless waves I’d run my fingers through were gone, his hair cut short. His chest seemed broader, and his arms hung loosely at his sides—arms defined by hard muscle that stretched the sleeves of his white T-shirt. But that was where the differences ceased. His eyes, piercing and blue as the deepest part of the bay, locked me in place as his trademark smirk lifted the corners of his mouth.
    He was hot enough to melt the polar ice caps. Even more gorgeous than I remembered, which seemed impossible. He had a mouth made for kissing and a body made for fucking, and as he sized me up I was battered by images of both. The space between us turned electric. I could practically hear it hiss like a drop of water on