InformedConsent by Susanna Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

For one thing, he hated the idea of having
you there, on parole from Fermanagh.”
    “Don’t I know that.”
    “So it fits. Jarmin figured you’d get a permanent job with
Dad once you finished your parole and move up the ladder. Maybe he did goad
you. Except for the screwdriver, he’d have suffered some aches and bruises and
come out smelling like a rose.”
    “It certainly had the desired effect,” Corbett agreed
grimly.
    “He showed his true colors about a year later, and he was so
fired, and Leo ran the place much more smoothly without him. And everything’s
been great. Until now, until the heart attack.”
    “So, let me just get this straight. Leo hasn’t a clue about
anything that ever passed between us?”
    She shook her head. “He knew we were just friends, is all.
That’s why he sent me to talk to you. To ask if you’d consider leaving what you
have here…” She waved an arm to indicate the camp, and his perhaps ideal
working conditions. “And come back to Victoria and talk with Leo about running
the training end of the business.”
    “Train others…” He shook his head in a dazed kind of way.
    “So,” she said, her voice on a tightrope of neutrality, not
sure herself what she wanted him to answer, “is it something you might
consider?”
    “Consider?” He stared into the fire and his voice seemed to
hold the same non-committal edge, but the light in his eyes gave him away.
“I…might think about it.”
    She nodded slowly. “That would be good.”
    “But what about you? I mean, you came here on Leo’s errand
with all that old baggage between us. He hadn’t a clue what he was asking you
to do.”
    “Yeah, I came up here all business, determined I could just
present the proposition and keep it all on the straight and narrow. If you said
yes, and eventually joined him, I’d be thankful Leo was in good hands. I’d just
have to avoid hanging around there during business hours. Make sure I kept
distance between us.”
    He was silent for a long string of moments, as a gust of
wind blew up across the water, rippling up the smooth surface and sending a
soughing through the trees and a chill over Tara’s skin.
    “Strictly business, eh?” he said. “But today didn’t turn out
quite as planned.”
    “Not quite. You walked out of that cabin and I knew I was
lost. Oh, I still thought I could keep it all cool between us, but you insisted
on bringing up that damned agenda and I just kept on getting weaker and softer.
I thought I could just make light of it, but, well, I guess like Jarmin, I
underestimated how far you’d go by way of response.”
    “Hell. You think I didn’t fight it?”
    “Didn’t seem like it.” She replayed the quickness of his
actions that had reduced her from savvy businesswoman to vulnerable sexual
supplicant in seconds. “You had me stripped and bound and powerless within five
minutes of my arrival.”
    “Maybe ten. Okay, I stopped fighting my better self pretty
quick.”
    “Why’d you fight it at all? You’re a guy; you had my
consent.”
    “Aw, Tara, girl.” He turned, stretched out on his side and
shifted half onto her to caress her face. “Consent? When you were tied up and
helpless, despite all that big talk? No, I never had your consent until you
agreed to let me to join you in the water. I wanted you so much. I don’t know
how many times over the years I’ve fantasized about just throwing my cards on
the table and coming to find you again.”
    This new knowledge heated up her memories, as his light kiss
on her breast heated her everywhere else.
    “What stopped you?” she managed to gasp.
    “The fact that Leo would never want me anywhere near you. Or
the business. All I could achieve would be to come between you and your dad.”
    His mouth traveled away from her breast, down her stomach,
lightly exploring, nipping, kissing, driving her mildly insane.
    “And of course,” he murmured from her abdomen, “there was
the charming farewell letter I’d